


Gyroscope

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputee!Eren, Eren's a smart cookie, Fuck the Police, Inventor!Eren, M/M, Running from the law, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-02
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 04:31:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1731215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren Yeager lost his left arm and leg in a training accident during his first year in the military. Ever since then, he's worked as an inventor and blacksmith's apprentice in attempts to come up with something that will help get him into the ranks of a military engineer. However, along the way his attempts to help get misinterpreted and the military he's devoted his life to turns on him, labeling him an outlaw. With the help of some friends and childhood idols, Eren goes into hiding and tries to figure out just who the real enemies are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Principles of Angular Momentum

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I have a lot of other fics to work on, but I'm starting a new one! This is entirely based off nonkan on tumblr's [headcanons and doodles](http://nonkan.tumblr.com/post/87423120783/what-if-eren-didnt-have-the-ability-to-shift-the). They were nice enough to allow me to write a story about it so all credit for the idea goes to them! I highly suggest you go check out their blog, or at least look at the post that has the headcanons and doodles this is based off of, so you get a better idea of what's going on.
> 
> Eren isn't a titan shifter in this story.  
> It will vaguely follow canon events, but I haven't read the manga (yet) so it might not follow too closely after that. And obviously since Eren isn't a titan shifter lots of things are different. 
> 
> This will eventually become Eren/Levi, but there's going to be a good amount of buildup to that, so don't expect smut in the first couple chapters. Levi won't even be in it for a few chapters most likely.
> 
> As always, you can follow me on tumblr at [downtheupstairs](http://downtheupstairs.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> Definitions from dictionary.reference.com. [Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gyroscope_operation.gif) is a gif of a gyroscope if you don't know what they look like/do.

           **gy·ro·scope** [ **jahy** -r _uh_ -skohp]  _ **noun**_ ::  _an apparatus consisting of a rotating wheel so mounted that its axis can turn freely in certain or all_

_directions, and capable of maintaining the same absolute direction in space in spite of movements of the mountings and surrounding parts:_

_used to maintain equilibrium, determine direction, etc._

The evening sun was hot as it beat down on the tile roofs of the Karanese District of Wall Rose, but the fire in the forge was what nearly burnt the tan skin of a young boy hard at work in the local blacksmith shop. He’d been working in the shop since sunrise, just as he did nearly every day, regardless of the harsh summer. He was an apprentice here under Hagen Schneider, who was once the best blacksmith in the city. He was getting old, however, and wasn’t able to work as easily as he used to, which was why he had taken on an apprentice.

Hagen had never anticipated taking on a boy with one arm and one leg. But the twelve-year-old who came to him that winter with a crudely made wooden leg had such determination in his eyes when he promised he’d prove his worth that he just couldn’t deny him the chance.

And prove his worth he did. He made himself a new arm and leg, which he kept improving over the years, using scrap metal leftover from various orders and saving up his own money to buy other parts he needed. Eren worked on nearly everything, from shoes for farmers’ horses to pots and kettles to sell in town and every once in a while he’d get the chance to repair the 3D-Maneuver gear of a soldier passing through town.

Over the years Eren had become more like a son to Hagen than an apprentice. Eren slept in the attic above the workshop and ate his meals with Hagen and his wife in their little house next door. Hagen only required that Eren work forty hours a week for his dues, but the boy went far above the minimum requirement. For a while Hagen worried the boy was depressed, having heard the story about his parents and limbs and how his friends were still in the military after he was forced to leave. He worried that he was lonely, and spent all of his time in the forge because there was no one his age around. But when Hagen put his foot down and told Eren he needed to go spend some time outside playing, Eren had argued back, saying that he got all the fresh air he needed delivering packages and selling wares at market and that he was perfectly happy in the forge. So Hagen gave the subject up and let Eren do what he liked.

But Hagen did know that Eren’s mind tended to wander in the workshop, and he often lost track of the time, which was why on this particular day Hagen walked into the shop, leaning on the cane he’d had to make himself a few years back due to a bad hip, cleared his throat, and said gruffly, “It’s getting late, boy.” He waited until Eren stopped fiddling with the piece he was working on to continue. “If you’re going to wake early to get going, you’d better catch some sleep.”

Eren looked out the workshop window and saw that the sun had nearly set over the wall. “Oh, right,” he said sheepishly. “I will. As soon as I finish this.”

“What the devil are you working on?” Hagen asked. He assumed it was one of Eren’s side projects that he loved so much. He always seemed to have one of those going.

Eren’s eyes lit up as he finally took them off of the bits of metal in front of him. “It’s something new. There’s a series of circles,” he said, showing off the pieces in front of him. “I’m almost done putting them together. I think I’ve got it right this time…” He got lost in thought as he went back to trying to assemble the small pieces.

“Well,” Hagen said, frustrated with Eren’s distractibility as always. “What does it _do_?”

“Oh! Well, see this bar here in the middle, where I’ve painted the top bit red?” He pointed to a small copper bar, the top half painted red as he’d described. It was about three inches long, and Eren had stuck it through a little copper plate about two inches wide. He then attached one of the thin tin circles around it so that the bar exactly spanned the diameter.

The prosthetic that he currently had on his arm was the one he usually wore for work, and basically functioned as a vice – it had two pieces of polished metal and one was on a screw so he could put something in between and tighten the metal pieces with his other hand to grip the object between them. Eren had spent months perfecting this arm.

“See, I attach this circle here, and I drilled holes in the circle the opposite direction, yeah?” He showed the tiny holes that were placed perpendicular to the bar and then picked up the next tin circle, this one only half an inch wide like the others but a good inch bigger in diameter, and he used tiny bits of stiff wire to connect it to the inner circle. “So I attach it like that, and I do the same thing with the next one…” He adjusted the rings and added the last one, attaching it again perpendicular to the one he’d just connected.

Eren finally held up the product, which looked like a sphere, made by the outer two rings, with other loops inside it and at the center the copper bar standing straight up with the plate sitting in the middle.

“That still doesn’t answer what it does,” Hagen said, unimpressed.

“Just look!” Eren said, having long ago learned not to let anybody’s word discourage him. He carefully held the outer ring with his fingertips and tilted it left and right, back and forth, making sure Hagen could see it clearly. “No matter how I move it, the red bar always points up!”

“Huh,” Hagen said, taking it from Eren, who was nearly pissing himself with excitement that his invention worked. “Well, what’d you use it for?”

“Well,” Eren began, and it was obvious he’d planned this speech long ago. “I was thinking, with the military-“ Hagen kept himself from rolling his eyes. Eren was always trying to do something to help the military, and it honestly got a bit old. “Because they’re always using the 3D-maneuver gear and flipping through the air and all that, sometimes they lose direction and don’t know which way’s up. But if they had a little one of these on their uniform or gear somewhere, they’d always know!”

Hagan scratched his beard. There were a lot of problems with Eren’s idea, but he figured he’d let the kid find them out on his own. “That’s… not actually a bad idea, kid. But get to sleep now. You’ve got a long couple days ahead of you.”

“I know,” Eren said, smile still not fading. He looked at his invention once more before placing it back on the table and giving Hagen a hug. “I’ll probably be gone before you’re up in the morning so I’ll say my goodbyes now. I’ll see you in a couple weeks. Say goodbye to Mrs. Schneider for me.”

“I will, son,” Hagen said, patting Eren on the back. “You stay safe out there. It’s a long trip through the woods. Bring plenty of food. And I know you’re going to try to ride at night so I won’t bother trying to tell you not to. Just don’t push your horse too hard, she’s a living being just like you and you both need sleep.”

Eren blushed, his plans found out before he could even think them. “Yessir,” he said. “Goodnight.”

With a curt nod, Hagen left the workshop for his own little house and left Eren to blow out the candles in the workshop and climb up the ladder to hit attic room. Eren checked his bags before he got ready to sleep. He had a couple changes of clothes – he really only ever changed his clothes every week or so, even when he wasn’t travelling – a bag of food, his notebook of sketches and drawings and ideas, and finally his box.

His box, which contained all of the pieces of the 3D-maneuver gear he may or may not have bought on the black market for an arm and a leg – not seriously, though; he lost them a different way – that was broken when he got it but managed to not only completely fix up but alter so that he could use it with a set of his prosthetics. He hadn’t had a chance to try it out in the open, yet, because it was a little bit illegal to own one of these things if you weren’t in the military, which he wasn’t anymore. He’d only been able to carefully swing himself around the workshop, making sure to only attach the hooks to sturdy pieces of the building and being as quiet as possible so as not to wake anyone. He’d worked on this gear at night for over a year, keeping it secret even from Hagen so that he wouldn’t know anything if Eren got in trouble for it.

While he was on his trip, though, Eren would be passing through miles upon miles of woods, where nobody would be around to see him practicing. He’d still only be able to risk a few hours of practice if he wanted to be in Trost in time for the 104th’s graduation and not be exhausted from riding all day and practicing using his gear all night. He knew he’d have to keep his gear secret from his friends, too, because he didn’t want any of them to let it slip that he had it, but maybe he’d be able to let Armin and Mikasa know. They surely wouldn’t be happy and would worry he’d get caught, but Eren had to share it with _someone_. He was so proud of himself for making it. If only he could become a military engineer, he’d be able to share the technology with them and it would allow them to use more people in battle, even amputees like him.

But you had to be part of the military to become a military engineer. That was the problem. And since Eren obviously couldn’t be part of the military anymore, his hopes were nearly dashed. But not completely. He still hoped that if he managed to make something else that proved useful to the soldiers, and he could get them to look at it and consider it, maybe then they’d let him join even though he didn’t graduate from the military, and then he could ‘invent’ his altered maneuver gear since he’d be legally allowed to have one and know how it worked. That’s why he’d worked so hard on his new invention, the one he’d just barely finished tonight. He had worked on it for months, most of that time trying to get the design right and the rest trying to actually make it. He was so happy he’d be able to bring it with him to Trost. Maybe he could find one of the higher-ups at graduation and show them his idea.

Eren checked to make sure that all of the pieces of his altered maneuver gear were in place and ready to go before securely packing them up. He wrapped his new invention in a piece of cloth to protect it and put it in with his clothing for extra padding. He also packed up two pairs of his prosthetics – the one he uses to ride horses and the one he specially made to use with the maneuver gear.

Only then did Eren strip down to his underwear and flop on his lumpy mattress in the attic to fall asleep on that hot summer night.

 

* * *

 

He woke the next day before the sun rose. He washed his face in his water basin, mostly to wake himself up rather than get clean. He’d get covered in dirt and filth on his travels anyway. He went next door to eat a hearty breakfast, making sure to keep quiet so as not to wake the Schneiders, and then grabbed all of his things and got on his way. He had to walk to the stables at the edge of town, since the blacksmith’s shop didn’t have any room for horses of its own, and rent a horse for his trip. Thankfully, the owner gave Eren good discount because he’s the one who makes the shoes and bits for all his horses. Eren loaded up his horse, making sure the box that contained his maneuver gear was safe, changed into his riding prosthetics and packed up his regular ones, and got on the horse and set off on his journey.

It was a long journey from Karanese to Trost, several days’ worth of travel. It was worth it to get to see his friends again, though. It had been too long. They’d managed to visit Eren a couple of times since he got injured and kicked out of the military, but the trainees didn’t have much time off, so it wasn’t easy. And now that they were graduating and going into all different branches of the military, who knew when he’d be able to see them? He already knew Armin and Mikasa were going into the Scouting Legion, so they’d probably be extremely busy on their expeditions outside the walls, and that’s assuming they came back alive… No. Eren wasn’t going to even think about that. They _would_ stay alive.

Once the evening began to settle in and his horse got tired, Eren led her to a river to drink and ate a bit of dinner. The sun was still setting, so Eren decided he had just enough light to try out his maneuver gear. He made sure his horse was secure and hidden from the main path and suited up. It was weird to wear the gear without the heavy blade cases on his hips, but they would be too bulky to carry with him and he was still trying to figure out how to make the swords work with his hands. He had the hilt of one in his remaining hand, altered so that it controlled the triggers for both the wires, but he left the blades he had for it back in his room. He was only testing out the flying mechanisms this time, so he had no need for them.

Before he finished putting on the belts, he changed out his prosthetics, changing his hand out to one that had a hook and the leg for one made of a flexible metal that curved back in a half circle, which allowed for a slight bounce when he ran or landed. The prosthetics fit into Eren’s altered belt system so that they were kept completely secure.

Finally, after minutes of tightening and adjusting the belts and the way the gear laid, Eren was ready to try it out. He decided to start off small. He shot the wires at a medium-height branch so that he could swing up onto a lower one. The wires latched and he reeled himself in and-

He was hanging sideways.

He had thought he’d adjusted for the lighter weight on his amputated side, but apparently not enough for that speed. He jumped back down to the ground and went over to his things, getting out a screwdriver to open up the machinery and adjust the tension on the left wire to compensate for the lack of weight. It took him a couple more test jumps to figure out the right tension, but finally got it right.

Eren stayed low in the trees to start with, still getting used to the gear again after so long without using it, and adjusting to the new trigger system, but as he got more secure in its use he allowed himself more freedom, taking riskier jumps and heading higher in the trees. At one point, he even allowed himself to swing up above the canopy. He let out a whoop as he got a glimpse over the whole forest, even able to see the wall in the distance. For the first time since he lost his arm and leg, he felt like he was flying.


	2. Relative Rotation About a Fixed Axis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graduation day passes and disaster strikes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Figuring out how to alter maneuver gear to work for an amputee is very hard, especially considering that the design of regular 3D maneuver gear is 'kept secret by the government' in a black box-type technology. 
> 
> Also canon divergence is hard to write. This story involves a lot of research.  
> Much of the dialogue from this chapter is taken from or heavily based on things that happen in episodes 4 and 5 of the anime.

           **hinge** [hinj]  _noun_ ::  _1\. a jointed device or flexible piece on which a door, gate, shutter, lid, or other attached part turns, swings, or moves._

_2\. a natural anatomical joint at which motion occurs around a transverse axis, as that of the knee or a bivalve shell. 3. that on which_

_something is based or depends; pivotal consideration or factor._

 

Eren had to admit that he let himself get a bit carried away. He spent hours up in the trees, soaring through the air, when he should have gone down and slept so he could get going again the next morning. But it was just so liberating to be able to use the gear again. There was a bit of fear at first, true, but for the most part it just felt natural to be flying again. He hadn’t felt this normal since before the accident. Even walking with his prosthetics, he felt limited. But with the gear he was whole again. He was free.

Eventually he noticed the time and realized he should go set up camp for the night. He did so back by where he’d tied up his horse, not minding the hard forest floor as his bed because it wasn’t any worse than the mattress he had up in the attic over the workshop. Thankfully the birds chirping in the trees above him were loud enough to wake him up, otherwise Eren would have overslept and would have needed to push his horse harder than he’d want to.

He passed through several small towns on his journey, getting lunch at a small inn in one of them on the way. Once again, when it started getting dark he pulled off to the side to practice some more with his maneuver gear, and once again he lost track of the time.

This pattern continued over the next few days of travel, though by the last night he was close enough to the city that he didn’t want to risk using the gear, not when graduation meant there’d be tons of soldiers crawling all over the place. He couldn’t risk a patrol on the wall seeing him. Instead, he got a good night’s sleep, catching up on what he lost while playing around with his gear.

Eren arrived in Trost the evening before graduation. After setting his horse up at the local stable, he gathered his things and went to the pub at which Armin and Mikasa has said in their last letter that the class would be celebrating. The pub had an inn attached, so before he went to the basement where he could hear the sounds of his friends, Eren paid for a room and put his things away. He didn’t want to risk having someone steal something of his in the commotion, but mostly he didn’t want to risk someone finding his maneuver gear. After putting his things away and switching his riding prosthetics for his normal ones – the leg with a wooden foot that fit into his boots and the hand similar to the one he used with his gear, except with a softer, more rounded and wide hook – Eren headed back down and finally went to see his friends.

As soon as one person in the room recognized him standing at the bottom of the staircase, the room erupted in a cheer of Eren’s name. He blushed, but smiled. It was nice to know that his friends hadn’t forgotten about him after all this time. He got bombarded by hugs, and several people who hadn’t seen him in a long time asked about his prosthetics, which he proudly told them about making. He was in the middle of telling someone about all his inventions over the past few years when he noticed Armin and Mikasa waiting to get his attention, so he told the guy he’d talk to him later.

The three childhood friends shared long hugs before finally someone gave Eren something to drink. They went over to stand by the fire while they caught up. The biggest surprise was when Mikasa told Eren her class ranking.

“Ehh?!” Eren nearly shouted. “You came in first?! That’s amazing!” He hugged his sister tightly again. “I should’ve expected it from you, though. You’ve always been great at everything.”

Somebody at a nearby table heard their conversation and decided to join in.

“Yeah,” the guy said. “She came in first but she’s still not joining the Military Police. It’s insane.”

“I would’ve done the same thing if it were me,” Eren said, frowning.

“What? Why?” the guy asked.

“I didn’t enlist in the military to live a comfy life in the Inner District,” Eren explained. “All this training you guys did, it’s all to kill titans, right? What good is that training in the inner walls?”

“But you’ll never win!” the guy exclaimed, and the pub went near silent as everyone turned to look at the commotion. He looked around and felt the need to explain himself before. “You know full well just how many have been killed by them. We’ve lost more than twenty percent of the total population already. Mankind doesn’t stand a chance against them.”

A heavy weight fell over the room in the wake of his words.

Eren finally broke the silence.

“So?” he asked. “You’re just giving up because you think you can’t win?”

“Well-“ the guy tried to explain.

Eren ignored his protests. “It’s true. We’ve suffered only defeats so far. That’s because we knew hardly anything about them! We can’t defeat them using sheer numbers. We may have lost, but the knowledge we obtained from those battles is out guiding beacon of hope. Yet you’d discard the tactical progress bought by hundreds of thousands of sacrifices, just to serve yourself up on a silver platter?” Eren was yelling at this point. “You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Eren left his drink on a table and curled his remaining hand into a fist. “I’ll kill every last one of them and break free of these walls! That is my dream! Mankind hasn’t lost everything yet!”

The room was once again silent until a small voice from the crowd spoke the question on everyone’s minds.

“How are _you_ going to do that?”

Hundreds of eyes shifted to the hook where Eren’s left hand should be, and Eren held it up for their viewing.

“I’ll show you,” Eren promised, more to his prosthetic limb than to the crowd. “You’ll see.”

And then he stomped out of the room.

 

* * *

 

Mikasa and Armin followed Eren out of the pub and into the empty street. It was late enough now that most everybody was in bed, so they sat on the steps of the road, Mikasa and Armin on Eren’s either side.

Armin spoke first from his place on Eren’s right. “Eren?” he asked. “Can we talk about your dream?”

“Yeah,” Eren said, knocking his shoulder against Armin’s. “After all, I got it from you.” He looked off into the distance. “Breaking free of the walls, and all that…”

“How…” Armin closed his mouth and thought his words over some more before continuing. “How exactly do you plan to do that, Eren? To kill all the titans?”

“I don’t know exactly how,” Eren admitted. “But I can. And I will. Somehow.”

“Don’t go doing anything stupid, Eren,” Mikasa warned.

“I won’t, Mikasa,” Eren agreed, rolling his eyes.

“It might be a while before we can all see each other again,” Armin commented, and a heavy silence fell on the three. They sat on the stairs there and looked up at the sky.

A shooting star flew by right in front on them.

Silently, the three each made wishes.

 

* * *

 

A little while later, Eren dragged his friends back into the pub and up to his room, telling them he had to show them something. They knew it must be something special when Eren made sure the door was locked behind them and ensured that they wouldn’t be disturbed.

Eren knelt by his bed and dragged a box out from beneath it and put it on the bed.

“What is that?” Armin asked, leaning over Eren’s shoulder to see.

“Just a minute,” Eren said, smiling with excitement. He took off the key around his neck and fitted it into the box’s lock. He’d had the key forever, even before he joined the military. His father had given it to him, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why. But when he needed to keep his maneuver gear safe and secret, he made a lock that his key would open, figuring it would be easiest that way. Nobody would be suspicious of the key because he’s always had it on.

He opened the box to reveal the maneuver gear, carefully positioned on padded cloth to keep it safe.

“Eren…” Armin sighed, laying eyes on the gear.

“What did you do?” Mikasa asked angrily. “Why do you have this?”

“Wait!” Eren insisted, keeping his voice low so nobody would overhear. “Just look!” He pulled out the sword hilt and showed it to his friends.

Armin carefully took it and looked the object over. He looked back up at Eren. “This is…”

“I _altered_ it,” Eren said, grin glued on his face. “So I can use it! Look!” He took the trigger wires from the fan section and attached both of them to the single hilt, whereas normally one wire would go to each of the two hilts.

“Eren, this is amazing!” Armin said, closely examining his friend’s work.

“But it’s still illegal!” Mikasa protested. “If you get caught with that-“

“I know, Mikasa,” Eren interrupted. “Which is why I’m keeping it secret. Not even Mr. Schneider knows. But you should see me – I tried it out in the forest on my way here and, after a few mishaps, I could _fly_.”

“Do I need to remind you what happened last time you tried to use maneuver gear?” Mikasa asked.

“Of course not!” Eren argued. He looked down at the hook that replaced his hand. “How could I forget?”

Mikasa sighed and knelt next to the two. “I’m sorry Eren. I just don’t want you getting hurt again.”

“I can’t live my entire life inside these walls, Mikasa. I’ll go crazy.”

“What are you planning on doing?” Armin asked. “You can’t go to the military and tell them you’ve tampered with illegally-owned gear. You’ll get thrown in jail.”

“That’s why I have another plan,” Eren responded, smirking.

Before he could expand on that, the clock tower tolled eleven.

“Isn’t that curfew?” Armin asked.

“Yes,” Mikasa answered, though it was clear she wasn’t happy ending the conversation here.

“You should get back,” Eren told them. He wasn’t happy to see them go either, but he also didn’t want them to get in trouble, especially on their last day. He smiled anyway. “You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

“We’ll see you after the ceremony,” Mikasa promised, giving her brother another hug.

“See you tomorrow,” Eren confirmed. He hugged Armin again also and locked up his gear before seeing them out.

As he lay in bed – feeling like heaven with the straw mattress from the inn – Eren held his invention in his hand. The little sphere that, god willing, would get him in the ranks of the military engineers. All he had to do was get someone to listen to him tomorrow. He’d just have to figure out a way.

 

* * *

 

The day after graduation there was a procession in the streets as the leaders of the Scouting Legion came to town to meet the new recruits. Eren managed to meet up with Armin and Mikasa in the crowds to get a glimpse of them all as they passed. Even if there was practically no chance he’d ever fight along side them, especially since he hadn’t managed to show anyone his invention the day before, he couldn’t help but admire all that they’d done. He spotted only a few of the same people he’d seen in the procession five years ago – Commander Smith, Captain Levi, and a handful of others. No matter what anybody says about the Military Police, _these_ people were the ones humanity depended on. They were the real heroes.

They got into a conversation with Franz and Hannah, who Eren thought were a bit naïve about the Colossal Titan never coming again, but they got in some good laughs poking at them about their relationship.

As Hannah and Franz were busy blushing with embarrassment, another familiar face came up to the three.

“Hannes!” Eren called out as he approached.

The man looked happy to see them until he noticed Eren’s lack of uniform and his prosthetic limbs. “Eren?” he asked. “What happened?”

Eren chuckled and scratched his head. “Just a training accident…”

“I’m sorry,” Hannes said. “I know it was your dream to-“

“Don’t be,” Eren cut him off. “Please.” He hated being pitied.

To change the subject away from what he knew was a sensitive topic, Armin said, “Hannes, I heard they made you a Captain of a Garrison.”

“What?” Eren asked. “A drunkard like you?”

Hannes flicked Eren’s forehead in retaliation and they joked around a bit before Hannes sobered a bit. “Anyway,” he said. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t save your mother. All those years ago. I never got a chance to apologize.”

Eren was taken aback, and then a little pissed off. “Don’t be,” he said again. “It wasn’t your fault. I’m no longer ignorant. I won’t let that sort of tragedy happen again. I _will_ defeat the titans.”

Before he could be told otherwise, Eren turned and walked off, leaving Armin and Mikasa with Hannes. They all had so much to say, but all of it was about how Eren’s dreams were hopeless, so they just stayed silent.

 

* * *

 

Later that day, all the graduates had to work up on the walls doing maintenance on the cannons, leaving Eren on his own. Since he didn’t get a chance at graduation to talk to anybody about his invention, he saw this as his one opportunity. He went back to the inn and got his invention – it really needed a name; he’d have to work on that, though he’d never been good at naming inventions – and headed towards the barracks. Maybe there’d be somebody there he could talk to.

There were tons of soldiers around the barracks, and Eren knew that he wouldn’t be able to get inside, as it was likely reserved just for military personnel. But, as he walked around the building, he spotted green cloaks at the military stables and he remembered that the Scouting Legion would need to put away their horses, so that was probably them. He tried to push his way through people until he could get a better look.

He spotted a head of blond hair. That was Commander Smith!

“Commander Smith!” Eren called, shoving his way through the soldiers. “Commander Smith!”

People kept turning to stare at him, but the Commander seemed busy in conversation. Eventually, when Eren was about halfway there and still calling for the man, a short guy next to – Holy shit was that Captain Levi? It totally was – gently hit the Commander on the arm and said, “Oi, Erwin. Some brat’s calling for you.”

That caused the Commander to turn and look at Eren, who was in plain sight now that the masses seemed to part to let him through. Eren was suddenly terrified, the weight of who he was about to talk to finally hitting him, but he forced his legs forward until he stood in front of the Commander and saluted as best he could with the cloth-covered invention in his hand and his other being a hook that he had to make sure didn’t stab his back.

The Commander seemed taken aback by the salute. “At ease,” he said.

Eren put his arms down and tried to figure out what to say now that he was here. “Um… h-hello, sir. My name is Eren Yeager and I used to be a trainee hoping to join the Scouting Legion.” He didn’t miss how the Commander’s eyes fell on his prosthetic arm in a silent question, which Eren chose not to answer. “I, um, I’ve been thinking of ways that I could still help and I made something, it’s-“ With trembling hand and hook Eren opened the cloth and took out his invention.

“It’s- Well, I don’t really have a name for it yet, but it-“ He tried to turn it to show how the bar keeps standing straight up, but the inner wheel didn’t move. “Wait. Hold on just-“ He looked closer and he realized one of the wires was caught and wasn’t letting the circle spin, and he tried to fix it. “It’s just this wire-“

Somebody called for the Commander and the man turned away to listen to the message before turning back to Eren. “I’m sorry,” he said, putting a hand on Eren’s shoulder. “I have to get going. I’d like to hear more, but… If you could find Captain Hanji I’m sure they’d be interested. I really must get going now.”

And then the Commander was gone, and Captain Levi left with him. Eren had heard of Captain Hanji before, but had no clue where to find them. He looked around, trying to find anybody who looked like a Captain, but he search was suddenly interrupted by a very familiar sight.

A loud crash came from afar, drawing everyone’s attention toward the wall. And peering just over it was the Colossal Titan, back again.

 

* * *

 

Eren didn’t think before he flew into action. He ran as fast as he could with his prosthetic leg back to the inn, pushing through the crowds of screaming civilians and terrified soldiers who were being called to fight. He ran up to his room, not bothering to lock the door behind him as he took out the box beneath his bed and quickly opened it. He got everything out and took his prosthetics from his bag, changing which ones he was wearing as fast as he possibly could. He still wasn’t very quick about putting on the belts; the habitual way of doing so in training was well worn out of his bones, and it was even tougher with his prosthetics. He got it on as quickly as possible, though, attached the gas canisters to each hip, and ran back out of the inn.

He didn’t care if it was illegal.

He didn’t care if he wasn’t technically part of the military.

He didn’t even care that he didn’t have any blades.

He was going fight.

He had no other choice. Not only was the whole of Trost at risk, but Armin and Mikasa were out there and he wouldn’t let them die. Not when he could do something to help.

Eren started towards the wall. When the streets got too crowded to run, he pulled himself up on the roofs and switched between running and using the gear to get to where the Colossal Titan was. But after just a minute, the titan… vanished? Dammit. It was just like the last time.

But then he spotted the hole in the wall. Fuck. Eren started toward it. He didn’t know what he would do when he got there, but he had to do something. He could help get soldiers out or distract titans or _something_.

He spotted a familiar head of blond hair on a roof and stopped in his tracks. It was Armin. Why wasn’t he moving? He was just kneeling there. Why wasn’t he-

There was a titan coming. It- It picked him up. No. No. Eren was not going to lose Armin this way. Why wasn’t he fighting? Why wasn’t he trying to stay alive? Why-

Eren ran over as fast as he could, but it wasn’t fast enough. The titan had already dropped Armin down its throat, but Eren… he still wouldn’t take that as Armin being dead. He jumped right into the titan’s mouth, prying it open with his hook on the inside of its gums and his foot keeping the bottom jaw down. He reached forward with his other hand, calling out to Armin the best that he could. He barely touched his hand and then-

Success! He gripped Armin’s hand as tight as he could given the slime in the titan’s mouth and heaved him up, throwing his friend back onto the roof.

Now he just had to figure out a way out for himself. He turned as best as possible in the titan’s mouth to face Armin, who was still trying to figure out what was going on.

“Eren!” he shouted, both in surprise and mortification.

“Armin!” Eren returned.

“Eren! What are you doing?” Armin decided to leave that lecture for another time and reached out to try to grab his friend’s hand to help him out, but he was too late.

The titan’s jaw snapped shut, and Eren was gone.


	3. Conversion of Blunt End Force Into Forces Perpendicular to Inclined Surfaces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter and the next one are both almost exactly copied from the events in the anime in episodes like 5-8 or so. There are slight adjustments for the plot change in this story, but a majority of it is the same. I thought about not including it all because you all probably already know it, but I felt that it was necessary for the flow of the story. That said, if you feel like just skimming these chapters it's alright. I'm hoping to have the next chapter up tonight as well, since I don't really count these as chapters because it's mostly just copying from what's going on in the anime. There are a few significant changes to the action in the next chapter though.

           **wedge** [wej]  ** _noun_**   _1\. a piece of hard material with two principal faces meeting in a sharply acute angle, for raising, holding, or splitting_

_objects by applying a pounding or driving force, as from a hammer. 2. a piece of anything of like shape. 3. a cuneiform character or_

_stroke of this shape. 4. (meteorology) an elongated area of relatively high pressure. 5. something that serves to part, split, divide, etc._

 

“Oi! Armin! Get a grip! Armin! Armin! Oi!”

Armin finally blinked and realized that Connie was standing in front of him, shaking his shoulders to try to bring him back to reality. What had just happened? He couldn’t remember.

Connie noticed the shift in Armin’s eyes. “Have you come to?” he asked. “You ok? Are you hurt?” He glanced around. “Where’s your squad?”

“Squad?” Armin repeated.

“Come on,” Connie urged. “Pull yourself together. Why’re you alone?” He took his hand off the blond’s shoulder. “And you feel kinda… sticky. What exactly happened?”

Everything suddenly came back to him. The attack on the wall, the titans, almost being eaten, Eren saving him… Eren. He got eaten. He was gone. And he could have stopped it, if only he’d been able to grab Eren’s hand. If only he’d been able to move.

Armin screamed. “Idiot!” he berated himself. “Useless idiot! Just die! Fucking shith-“

“Oi, calm down!” Connie said, trying to calm down his screaming friend. “Armin! Where is everyone?”

Armin froze at the question and looked up at Connie.

“Give it up, Connie,” Ymir said from her place on the apex of the roof. She wasn’t even looking at them. “They got wiped out. Except for him.”

“Shut up!” Connie shouted. “Armin hasn’t said anything yet!”

“Can’t you tell just by looking around?” Ymir asked. “We don’t have anymore time to waste on him.”

“Why’s Armin the only one left in one piece?” Connie questioned back, motioning to the boy who was now on his knees, shaking.

“Who knows?” Ymir sighed. “Maybe they thought he was a corpse.” She finally turned her head to look at the two. “It’s a pity they ran into a bunch of titans, but why did _he_ have to be the only one to survive? It just means Eren and the others died in vain.”

Armin’s eyes widened at the words, only allowing his tears flow quicker out of them as he gripped his head in his hands.

“You bitch,” Connie seethed. “Want me to shut you up for good?”

Christa ran in between the two then, extending her arms in front of Ymir so that she and Connie had a barrier between them. “Stop it, you two!” she exclaimed. “Everyone’s just panicking. Our friends are all dying so suddenly. It’s only natural!”

Ymir smiled and put her arm around Christa’s shoulders. “That’s my Christa!” she said cheerily. “Once this is all over, marry me!” She laughed at her own words as Christa just looked blankly at the tall girl.

Connie was still pissed. “She’s messing around more than usual,” he said, mostly to himself, before kneeling down in front of Armin, who was still visibly freaking out. “Anyway,” he told the boy. “You can’t just stay here.” He held out his hand. “Can you stand, Armin?”

The blond closed his eyes and steeled himself, forcing himself to stop being a worthless sitting duck. He stood, ignoring Connie’s proffered hand. “Sorry for the trouble I caused,” he said, willing his voice to remain steady. Armin slowly walked past Connie and toward the edge of the roof. “I’ll go join the rear guard.”

“O-oi,” Connie said as the blond stepped to the edge of the roof. “Armin!”

But Armin didn’t wait to hear what Connie had to say. He just fired his maneuver gear and flew off the roof.

 

* * *

 

 _This has become Hell_ , Armin thought as he swung over the city towards the rear guard. _No, this hasn’t_ become _Hell. I’ve just had the wrong perspective the whole time. This world has always been… Hell_. He remembered his childhood, being beaten up just because he was smart, just because he was weak. _A world in which the strong devour the weak. A world so perfectly simple._ He remembered Eren and Mikasa, running to help him; to get the bullies to stop bothering him. _But my friends… tried to live strong in this world._ They would beat up the bullies while all he could do was sit and stare. That’s all he could ever do. But they always were there for him. _They held out a helping hand to a weakling like me. I couldn’t stand that. To those two… I’m something that needs protection. I wanted to live with a strength like theirs._ Even after Eren had lost two of his limbs, he was still so much stronger than Armin. He had found a way not only to live but to thrive, where Armin would have withered in his place. _I wanted to live with them as their equal._

Armin’s wire hit a wall and the hooks missed, sending him crashing to the ground. He managed to land on his feet and butt, but instinctively grabbed his shin when he felt a jolt of pain through it.

 _Some good that did,_ he thought, trying to hold in his tears. _Because of me, Eren…_

He heard a noise and turned. He saw Hannah kneeling over someone… or half of someone… It was Franz, Armin realized suddenly, and Hannah was trying to perform CPR in hopes of bringing him back, but even from afar Armin could see how hopeless it was. Franz’s entire bottom half had been chewed off. She couldn’t honestly think there was a chance he’d live, right?

Armin stood and walked over to the girl. “Hannah…” he said carefully. “What are you doing?”

“Armin, help me!” Hannah shouted, desperately trying to figure out a way to get Franz to live. She was still pushing on his chest as she begged Armin for help. “Franz isn’t breathing! I’ve given him CPR over and over and over again.” She looked up to the sky, screaming and crying to God now, not Armin. “But Franz…”

“Hannah…” Armin said quietly, extending a hand. “This place is dangerous so let’s hurry up and get-“

“We can’t just leave Franz here!” the girl shouted, unwilling to give up her love.

“But Hannah…” He looked down at the pool of blood in the spot where Franz’s legs should have been. “Franz is…” He felt tears prick at his own eyes again and put a hand over his face to stop them. “Please, stop,” he quietly begged. “It’s pointless… He can’t be saved… So please, stop…”

 

* * *

 

Hundreds of civilians crowded the gate to the inner walls in an attempt to escape to safety, but the gate was blocked by a cart that was far too wide to fit and people trying to shove it through.

A man who had tried to fight his was through was pushed back by the thugs protecting the cart’s goods.

“Hey, you people!” Someone in the crowd yelled to the owner of the cart. “Don’t you know what kind of situation we’re in!?”

“Of course!” The fat man responded. “That’s why I’m doing this!” His thugs were prepared to beat back anyone who disagreed. “You guys should help too if you want to be saved!” Already there were several people pushing on the cart to squeeze it through the gate, but it was far too wide to ever fit.

The crowd made an uproar, screams of “Fuck you!” and “You’re supposed to let the people through first!” and “They’ll eat us all!” ringing out among them.

Someone found a Garrison soldier and pushed him towards the cart owner, saying, “Do your damn job, soldier! Arrest these guys!”

The young soldier was hesitant to intervene. “But…”

The cart owner glared at the soldier with an evil eye. “Just try it, _boy_ ,” he scathed. “I’m the boss of the trade federation in this town.”

“W-well,” the soldier stammered, even more unwilling now to say anything, but with the angry mob behind him he was stuck between a rock and a hard place as the cart owner stalked towards him.

“Who do you think gives you the food you shit out?” the balding tradesman asked. “Can _you_ get together the kind of money required to feed all the soldiers here?” He didn’t wait for an answer and instead pointed to sections of the crowd. “All of you push too!” he yelled. “This cargo is worth more than you’ll make in your whole pathetic lives! You help me and I’ll help you!”

Towards the back of the crowd, a mother cradled her young daughter to her chest in comfort. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “Dad will get all the titans with his cannon.”

The girl looked over her mother’s shoulder at the long street behind them. “Mom…” she said questioningly. “Look.” She pointed at something, and her mother turned to see what it was.

The rest of the crowd eventually joined them in looking up at the titan that was barreling down the street, destroying buildings with its outstretched forearms and stomping anyone in the way with its pigeon-toed feet as it ran.

The tradesman yelled for his lackeys to push faster as the mob screamed for help. “Push!” he hollered. “Push for your lives!” The crowd swarmed the gate, civilians clambering over each other to try to get through even though the large cart was still fully blocking the way.

Three Garrison members flew after the titan, trying to catch up to it so that they could take it down.

“Dammit!” one of them yelled to the others. “Why is it ignoring us?”

“It’s an abnormal!” another answered. “Don’t waste time thinking about it!”

“It’s so fast,” the third said as she tried to fly faster on her gear. “We’re supposed to be the elite but we still can’t catch up!”

“At this rate…” the first soldier began, but he was cut off by a new soldier zipping past.

Mikasa spun and shot a wire into the nape of the abnormal titan’s neck, using it to propel her forward so she could make two neat slices there, killing the titan and standing on the back of it’s head as the body crashed to the ground right before the crowd.

The mob went silent as the dust settled and Mikasa stood up straight on the back of the titan’s corpse. The soldier looked at her swords, frowning at having dulled them both, but then she noticed the cart blocking the gate.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked the tradesman.

The man just smiled. “Great timing!” he exclaimed to Mikasa. “You! Make them help me out! I’ll reward you handsomely!”

Mikasa just gaped in disbelief. She pointed one sword back to the battlefield of a city. “My comrades are dying as we speak,” she said, eyes wide. “The noncombatants haven’t evacuated yet, so they’re fighting the titans and dying.”

“That’s only natural!” the tradesman yelled. “It’s your duty to offer up your hearts to protect us civilians and our wealth! Don’t get all high and mighty just because you parasites have finally emerged from a hundred years of uselessness!”

Mikasa narrowed her eyes and looked at the man in the middle of the crowd. She was pissed. She didn’t care about titans or anything like that at the moment. She just wanted to cut this guy down to size. She wasn’t fighting for his things. She was fighting for the people.

She jumped off the titan’s head and walked through the sea of people, a pathway splitting open for her as she passed through.

“If you think it’s only natural that people die for others, then I’m sure you’ll understand,” she said as she stalked forward. “Sometimes, sacrificing one precious life can save many others.”

Two of the tradesman’s thugs stepped forward to protect him as the soldier approached.

“Just you try it!” the man yelled from his safe spot behind his paid muscle, backing up to the cart behind him even with the lunks in front of him. “I’ve known your boss for a long time. You’re just a grunt. I can tell him to end you!”

The two bodyguards rushed towards Mikasa but she knocked them down easily with a swift hit with the broad side of her swords to the back of each of their necks. She didn’t even need to stop walking towards her target.

She stopped once she was right in front of the man, looking down on his cowering figure. “But how is a corpse going to tell him anything?” she asked. She raised her right sword above her head and the tradesman gasped, preparing for her strike.

“Wait!” he yelled as a last ditch effort, pressing his back against the cart behind him, but Mikasa didn’t listen. Instead, she slashed her sword down and into the cargo of the cart less than an inch away from the man’s ear and stared him down as he trembled.

“B-boss…” one of the lackeys stammered beside him.

“Pull the cart out,” the tradesman weakly ordered.

In just a few minutes, the cart was removed and put to the side, and all the people in the crowd filed through the gate and towards safety.

The mother from the back of the crowd and her daughter were some of the last people to make it through the gate. Before they passed, they stopped a few feet away from Mikasa.

“Thank you, Ms. Soldier!” the little girl called, catching Mikasa’s attention.

“You saved our lives,” the mother concurred. “Thank you so much.”

At first, Mikasa was unsure how to react, but she couldn’t help the small smile that graced her face. She put her swords back in the holsters and held her fist to her heart, saluting the two ladies. The little girl gasped in awe, and Mikasa turned to go resume her duties.

It started to rain as Mikasa stood on a roof nearby the steaming titan corpse with some Garrison members.

“Well done, Ackerman,” the Garrison squad leader said. “I’m impressed.”

“Thank you, sir,” Mikasa responded. “However, I acted far too hastily. I dulled both my blades in one attack.” She released the dulled blades from the hilts and let them clatter to the roof. “I’ll be more careful next time.”

The squad leader looked between the fallen blades and the soldier in front of him. “Seriously,” he said. “What _happened_ to make you so-?” Mikasa turned to look at the man and he turned away. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

Mikasa pulled her scarf over her nose to keep her warm in the rain. The image of the little girl and her mom from before flashed through her mind and she remembered her own mother. _Why am I remembering this now, of all times?_ she asked herself.

She thought back on that day, when her mother was teaching her embroidery. She’d just finished a piece and showed it to her mom, who said it was great. It was the style of embroidery passed down through her family. She was supposed to teach it to her own kids one day. Would she ever even have the chance now?

She remembered asking her mother how babies were made, and her mother telling her to ask her dad, who was over in the kitchen, peeling potatoes. He’d said that he didn’t know either. He said that Dr. Yeager would be there soon, and that they should ask him.

There was a knock on the door then. Whoever it was was insistent about coming in. They’d thought it was the doctor. It wasn’t.

They were planning on selling her. They’d wanted her mother, because of her rare heritage, but they… they killed her by accident. They’d killed her father on purpose, right when he opened the door. The men talked about her like she was cattle, trying to figure out how much she’d sell for. They were going to auction her off in the capital. They were upset because she wouldn’t catch as good a price as her mother would have. Her mother had told her to run as she resisted, but she didn’t move. Her mother had died for nothing. Mikasa was cold. She felt dead inside.

Someone opened the door. A young boy was there. Mikasa’s kidnappers yelled at him, but the boy just said that he had gotten lost in the woods. The kidnappers’ attitudes completely changed, inviting him inside to get away from the “scary wolves.”

But before the man could even finish the invitation, he got a knife in his gut. The boy told him go die as the man’s body slid to the floor. The other kidnapper stood up from his chair in shock and grabbed his ax, but Eren closed the door and left. The man ran after him, only to be chased back into the room and stabbed with a knife tied to a broom. Eren had always had been an inventive kid.

Mikasa could see the boy out of the corner of her eye and hear him yelling at the man, calling him a pig and telling him to die as he stabbed him over and over. He caught his breath once it was all done and wiped the blood from his forehead before looking over at Mikasa.

“It’s all right now,” he reassured her. “Don’t worry.” He used the knife to cut the ropes that bound Mikasa’s arms and legs. “You’re Mikasa, right?” he asked as he worked at the ropes. “I’m Eren, Dr. Yeager’s son. I think you’ve met my father before. He was visiting your place for a checkup, so I came with him. That’s when we found…”

Mikasa remembered then. Another face. She rubbed the marks on her wrists and said, “There were three.”

And then suddenly the last man was behind them. Eren reached for the knife but was kicked out of the way. “Didjya do this?” the guy asked as he backed Eren into the corner. He grabbed Eren by the collar of his shirt and hoisted him up to eye level. “Did you do this? You?! I’ll kill you! You’re fucking dead!”

Mikasa couldn’t do anything but sit and stare in horror. Just like with her mom earlier, she couldn’t move.

Even with the tight grasp the man had on his neck, Eren managed to catch Mikasa’s eye. “Fight!” he rasped. “You gotta fight! Lose and you die! Win and you survive!”

“What the fuck are you thinking, you little shit?!” the man yelled, shoving Eren harder into the wall.

He kept wheezing out his motivation to Mikasa anyway. “If you don’t fight, you can’t win!”

She could move now. She had to. She grabbed the knife and stood, holding it in front of her and aiming towards the man. “I- I can’t do this!” she whispered, trembling.

But then she remembered. As she saw Eren’s arms go limp, she remembered seeing this before. It was all over. Spiders are flies caught in their webs, the ducks her father would hunt for dinner. The world was filled with cruelty. She’d just pretended not to see it before.

She stopped trembling. She could do this. She had to. She’d had perfect control over herself ever since. She could fight. She could dig in her heels and thrust herself forward, screaming as she jammed the knife into the man’s back.

That night, Mikasa stood by a small fire outside as Eren’s dad checked the boy over. “Eren,” Dr. Yeager said to his son. “I told you to wait for me at the base of the mountain, didn’t I? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“I put down some dangerous beasts,” Eren answered assuredly. “They were just animals in human clothing!”

“Eren!”

“Look how long the Garrison took to arrive! They’d have gotten away ages ago! You wouldn’t have made it in time!”

“Even if that were true, you were just lucky, Eren! I’m criticizing you for not considering your own safety!”

Eren looked down, nearly in tears. “But… I wanted to save her as soon as I could.”

Dr. Yeager was taken aback by his son’s words before changing to a resigned expression and standing. “Mikasa,” he said, turning to the girl by the fire. “Do you remember me? I met you many times when you were a child.”

“Dr. Yeager…” Mikasa responded slowly. “Where do I go from here? I’m cold…” She was wearing a jacket someone had given her, but the night was still chilly. She pulled the jacket closer around her. “I don’t have a home anymore…”

Eren stepped forward, unwinding the scarf from around his neck. He approached Mikasa and wound the worn wool fabric around her head. “You can have this,” he said. “It’s warm, isn’t it?”

Mikasa blinked and touched the warm scarf. “It’s warm,” she agreed softly.

Dr. Yeager approached the two. “Mikasa,” he said. “You can come live with us. You’ve experienced too much pain. You need to rest.”

The girl looked over at Eren again.

“What?” Eren asked. He reached forward and took Mikasa’s hand in his. “Come on, let’s go home,” he said. “To our home.”

Mikasa couldn’t help but tear up at the words. “Okay,” she mumbled. “Let’s go home.”

 

* * *

 

Mikasa flew through the air, cleanly slicing a titan’s neck and landing on a roof as it feel to the stone below. She stood at the peak of the roof, her green cloak doing little to protect her from the pouring rain. _A world where only the victor survives,_ she thought. _A world of cruelty._ A bell tolled as the Wall Rose gate sealed shut, all civilians having safely crossed the border.

“Time to retreat, Ackerman,” the squad leader called. “We’re going over the walls.”

“I’ll go assist with the vanguard’s retreat,” she said. The squad leader started to protest, but Mikasa didn’t listen. She just fired off her maneuver gear and headed towards where Armin would still be fighting.

 _But in this world, I’ve found a home_ , she thought as she swung through the streets. _Eren, as long as you’re with me, I can do anything._


	4. Use of the Kinetic Energy of the Impellers to Increase the Pressure of the Gas Stream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I'd have this up last night but it's up now because last night I was too lazy to proofread. That is the entire reason.
> 
> Reminder that you can follow me on tumblr at [downtheupstairs](http://downtheupstairs.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> I promise that after this it'll stop following the anime so closely. I just needed to start here in order for it to diverge from the canon.

           **fan** [fan]  _ **noun**  _::  _1\. any device for producing a current of air by the movement of a broad surface or a number of such surfaces. 2. any of_

_various devices consisting essentially of a series of radiating vanes or blades attached to and revolving with a central hublike portion to_

_produce a current of air. 3. an enthusiastic devotee, follower, or admirer of a sport, pastime, celebrity, etc._

 

“Oi, Jean!” Connie called to his friend, who currently sat on the roof with his head in his hands. “What do we do now?”

Jean hung his head. “What _can_ we do?” he asked hopelessly. “We finally got the order to retreat, but we can’t get over the wall because we’re out of gas. We’re all going to die. Thanks to those fucking cowards...”

“You mean the support squads?” Connie asked. “What happened to them? Are they all dead?”

“The probably lost their will to fight,” Jean answered. “I understand how they feel. But I doubt they’ve abandoned their mission and barricaded themselves away in the HQ. I’m guessing the titans have them surrounded, which is why they can’t supply us with gas.”

“That’s exactly why we have no choice but to go all in on those titans!” Connie exclaimed. “Sitting here and waiting to die isn’t going to make a difference! The titans are going to surround us too! If we keep running away from them, we’ll just end up wasting the little gas we have left. Once we lose our agility, it’ll really be over!”

“I never thought I’d hear you make an intelligent comment, Connie,” Jean drawled, looking up at his friend before looking off to the side. “But how do you propose we do that with the forces we have left? The vanguard has nearly been wiped out.” He glanced over the nearby roofs, where his friends and fellow soldiers were sitting around in defeat, just waiting to have to run from the titans again until their gas ran out. “Moreover, which of us cadets could possibly take command of such an operation? Not that we could do anything about the titans even if someone did take command. The gas storage is probably crawling with 3-4 meter class titans by now. And of course, we can’t fight them inside the storage.”

Connie clenched his teeth for a moment before sagging in resignation. “So it’s hopeless?” he asked.

Jean sighed. “I had such a boring life,” he lamented. “If someone had told me beforehand…”

 

* * *

 

“Let’s do it!” Sasha exclaimed from another roof to her distraught comrades. “Stand up! If we all work together, we can do it! I’ll be in front!” When she received no response, she sighed. She looked around and noticed Armin, sitting by himself against the windows of a taller building next to the roof they were currently on. She went over to join him. “Armin!” she said. “Let’s go together and-“ She stopped midsentence when she saw the dead and almost crazed look in her friend’s eyes.

 

* * *

 

On the other end of the same roof, Annie, Bertholdt, Reiner, and Marco stood looking out over the city, the gray of the clouds nearly blending into the walls.

“What now, Reiner?” Annie asked.

“It’s not time yet,” Reiner answered. “We have to group up first.”

“It’s over…” Marco said to nobody in particular. The others looked over at him. “No matter what we do,” he explained. “We’ll be dead before we make it out of here.” He looked up at the gray, cloud-covered sky. “I mean, I’m prepared to die… But what exactly am I going to die for?”

 

* * *

 

“Mikasa! Weren’t you with the rear guard?”

The girl just ignored her fellow soldier’s surprise and continued across the roof. “Annie!” she said as she approached. “I think I understand the situation. And I apologize for bothering you, but have you seen Armin’s unit?”

“Armin’s over there,” Reiner supplied before Annie could answer, jerking his thumb in the direction of the distraught soldier.

Mikasa quickly made her way over to her friend. “Armin!” she exclaimed in relief. She was still worried, because she hadn’t seen Eren make it out of the city, but there were so many people she was sure he’d gotten caught up in the masses. The leaders had confirmed that all civilians made it out safely, after all. He must be safe.

Armin’s eyes widened in fear, realizing just what he would have to tell Mikasa. He didn’t know how he could even look her in the face with the news he had to share. But he couldn’t keep it secret. He needed to tell her. He needed to tell her, even though Eren should be alive instead of him.

Mikasa kneeled in front of the distraught boy. “Armin, are you hurt?” she asked softly. “Feeling okay?”

Rather than answering, Armin just let his head droop further. Mikasa nodded in understanding and stood. “Where’s everyone else?” she asked. When Armin didn’t answer, she pressed, “Armin?”

He finally managed to lift his head, showing the girl the tears welling in his eyes, and Mikasa nodded curtly in understanding. But Armin seemed a bit more upset than he should, she thought. He was acting as if he’d lost part of himself. She hadn’t seen anyone act like this since Eren woke up to find that they’d amputated his limbs.

“Armin?” she asked again. “What is it?”

“Our unit,” he squeaked out. “The 34th cadet unit…” He rested his fists on his knees, forcing himself to keep speaking. “Thomas Wagner. Nic Tius. Mylius Zeramuski. Mina Carolina. And…” His voice caught in his throat.

Mikasa didn’t understand. “And?” she asked. “Armin, those were the only members of your-“

“Eren Yeager.” Armin finally managed to get the words out, unmindful of how he was interrupting. “All five of them-“ he emphasized the five, because though Eren may not have graduated, what he did had proven than he was and always will be a soldier, “-have fulfilled their duty and died heroic deaths in battle!”

Everyone on the roof had turned to stare, and not only because of Armin’s shouting. They all knew Eren. They had been cadets together in the same class. And they knew what happened to him. None of them had any idea about what Armin meant when he said that Eren had fulfilled his duty and died a heroic death. He was a civilian now to them, even though he had once been a cadet. All of the civilians had been evacuated safely. How did Eren get caught up in battle? How was it a heroic death? Was Armin just completely out of his mind, crazy because of the grief and stress of fighting?

“No way…” Sasha said, unable to believe what Armin said. Marco gaped. From a roof away, Jean and Connie stared.

“What does he mean about Eren?” Connie asked Jean, who didn’t answer.

Mikasa just stared, unmoving.

“I’m sorry, Mikasa,” Armin said, finally releasing his pent-up tears. “Eren died in my stead… I couldn’t do anything! I’m so sorry!”

“I don’t understand,” Sasha said. “Armin, what are you talking about?”

Armin wiped his tears with the sleeve of his jacket. “He had maneuver gear.” He paid no attention to the collective gasp of everyone who hadn’t known. “He’d altered it, so he could use it… When the wall was breached, I guess he… He… decided to help… Eren, he… s-saved me, but then…” He couldn’t continue after that, but everyone understood the ending anyway.

Everyone was silent then, except for Armin, whose tears finally broke free enough to drip down onto the tile of the roof.

Eventually Mikasa knelt down in front of him. “Armin,” she said blankly. “Take a deep breath. This isn’t the time to be emotional.”

Armin looked up, confused.

“Stand up,” Mikasa suggested, standing herself and giving the blond a helping hand. Armin continued to stare in confusion at the girl’s reaction.

“Marco,” Mikasa called. She began walking down the length of the roof. “If we take out the titans around HQ, we can replenish our gas supplies and climb the wall. Is that correct?”

“Yeah…” Marco mumbled, a bit shocked at his comrade’s unemotional response as well. He tried to focus on the task at hand and not the news about Eren. “But even if you’re with us, there’s just too many-“

“We can do it,” Mikasa said definitively. “I’m strong. Stronger than all of you.” She turned at the end of the roof and faced all of her fellow soldiers, raising one of her swords high. “Extremely strong. I can kill all those titans there, even if I’m alone. You’re either incompetent or you’re spineless cowards.” She pointed her sword out at her comrades. “How pathetic. You can sit here and suck on your thumbs. Yeah, do that.”

“Hey, Mikasa!” A girl called from Mikasa’s side. “What are you saying?”

“You want to fight all those titans by yourself?” Another soldier asked.

“There’s no way you can do that!” A third yelled.

“If I can’t, then I’ll just die,” Mikasa answered simply, turning her back to all her friends. “But if I win, I live. Unless I fight, I cannot win.” With that, she jumped off the roof and zipped away.

“Your oratory skills are what’s pathetic,” Jean mumbled after she was gone. “Was the point of that to shock us into action?” He drew his swords and looked down at them. “It’s all your fault, Eren!”

And then, Jean lifted a sword up and turned to his friends on the other rood, shouting, “Hey! Were we trained to let our comrades fight alone?! At this rate, we really will turn out to be spineless cowards!”

He and Connie turned and ran off the roof, shooting their gear and following after Mikasa towards the barracks.

“I’m surprised to hear him say that,” Reiner said once he was gone. But he and Annie turned and followed anyway.

One by one, the rest of them swallowed their fears and joined the others, ready to fight once more.

* * *

 

Armin watched Mikasa as they flew. She was using too much gas. There was no way she’d make it to HQ flying the way she was. Armin knew she was drowning her pain in her fighting, but that didn’t mean she could be irresponsible like that.

Then it happened. Mid-flight, the gas of her gear ran out, sending her tumbling into a roof. Armin immediately shifted direction to follow after her. Connie called to Jean, telling him to keep going while he went to help. Jean tried to come help too, but Connie convinced him that he was more useful leading the others against the titans.

Mikasa lay spread out on the dumpster she’d landed on after tumbling down some roofs. _Again_ , she thought, raising her arms in front of her, staring at the glint of her sword in the cloudy light. _It happened again._ _I lost my family once again…_ She let herself fall off the dumpster and land on her knees on the cold stone ground. _This pain is familiar. Will I have to start fresh once again?_

Thump. Thump. Thump.

She could feel the reverberations of the steps as the titan walked up, seeing her on the ground and approaching. She was about to get eaten. She was about to die.

 

* * *

 

Jean stood on the roof, realizing that they wouldn’t be able to get to the HQ with all the titans that were there and their lack of gas. He watched as one of his comrades ran out of gas and was snatched up by a titan. Some others tried to save him, only to be caught and eaten themselves.

And Jean couldn’t do anything. He didn’t do anything. He was useless. He wasn’t cut out for a position with so much responsibility.

 

* * *

 

Mikasa put away her one of her swords and waited. The titan was approaching. She’d be gone soon. She closed her eyes and listened to the thumping footsteps, thinking about her family. She’d be seeing them again soon.

The titan reached out for her. She sat still.

It came closer. Closer.

She grabbed the sword in front of her and spun out, slicing off the titan’s reaching hand as she jumped back. Her body wouldn’t let her just sit back and die. She was fighting, whether she wanted to or not. She wasn’t physically capable of giving up.

She remembered Eren’s words. _Fight. You must fight._ She readied her sword as the titan approached again. She had no gas, but she still had to try.

Just when the titan had her cornered, Armin found her. He swooped in and grabbed her, propelling them onto a roof. They tumbled on as Connie caught up and asked if they were all right.

“We have to get going!” Connie told them.

“Wait!” Armin called. “Mikasa’s out of gas!”

“Huh?!” Connie yelled. “Are you fucking kidding me?! What are we gonna do without you?!”

“It’s obvious what we need to do,” Armin said, kneeling beside Mikasa. He took off the gas canisters on his gear. “I don’t have much gas left… You can take mine.”

“Armin!” Mikasa exclaimed.

“There’s no other choice!” Armin responded, preempting her rejection of the plan. He started attaching his gas canisters to Mikasa’s gear. “The gas is useless on me. But please use it carefully this time. You have to save everyone.”

Mikasa realized how selfish her previous actions had been, wasting the gas just because she wanted to fight. She had decided to give up her own life without thinking about how it would affect the others.

“Alright,” Armin said, testing the new gas on Mikasa’s gear. “Your maneuver gear’s good to go. I gave you all of my blades as well. Just leave one with me.” He picked up the last blade that he’d left on the tiles and looked at his reflection in it. “At the very least, I refuse to be eaten alive.”

Mikasa stepped forward and took the blade from Armin’s hands, throwing it off the roof.

“B-but…”

“Armin,” Mikasa said, kneeling next to him and covering his hand with her own. “I won’t leave you behind.” She helped him stand and the three on the roof looked out towards the barracks. 

“B-but, with so many titans around, you can’t possibly carry-“

“Let’s go!” Connie interrupted, grabbing Armin’s wrist and pulling him with him as he and Mikasa ran down the roof.

Suddenly a soldier was coming their way, flying over the roofs. When she stopped on their roof, where the three cadets had stopped to see who was coming, they got a better look at her. She had short dark blonde hair and when they looked at the patch on her jacket they saw she was a member of the Scouting Legion.

“Do you guys need help?” the soldier asked them, having seen them stranded out here by themselves.

“He doesn’t have any gas left,” Mikasa said, pointing to Armin. “And we’re running out.”

“Oh,” the girl said. “Well, why don’t you carry him and follow me? I’ll take care of the titans so you have enough gas. Are you trying to get to HQ?”

“Yeah,” Connie confirmed. “But they’re surrounded by titans.”

“That’s what we thought,” the Scouting Legion soldier responded, and then she smiled. “Don’t worry, we’ll be able to take care of it!”

The three cadets assumed she meant the Scouting Legion. They had originally been sent just outside the wall to try to prevent titans from coming in, but it seemed that they were here now that the troops were being called back.

Deciding they had better get a move on, Connie and Mikasa grabbed Armin and the four of them were off.

 

* * *

 

Jean stood on the roof, hating himself for not being able to help his now-dead friends, when he realized something. The titans were all concentrated in a specific area. This was their chance. He yelled out to the rest of his comrades. “Come on guys! Get to HQ while you can!”

They all started running, Jean leading the pack. “All right!” he called. “Move in!” They soared past titans, evading them the best they could. One caught Jean’s leg, but he managed to cut off the thing’s hand and escape. He was running down a roof when Marco caught up to him.

“Jean, thanks!” Marco called over to him as they ran. Jean looked at him with confusion. “I only got out because of you,” Marco explained.

“Huh?” Jean was still confused. He had no idea what Marco was talking about.

“It’s all thanks to you!” Marco responded. “I told you before, didn’t I? You’re cut out to be a leader!”

Jean smiled and turned his attention back to the mission.

Not everybody made it, but most of them did. Jean hated himself for letting them die, but then he turned and saw a couple of soldiers huddled under a desk. “You’re part of the supply squad, aren’t you?” he asked, getting angry. He grabbed one of them by the collar and hoisted him up just to punch him in the face.

Marco had to step forward and wrap his arms around Jean to get him to stop trying to attack.

“These bastards abandoned us!” Jean yelled. “Do you even have a clue how many died?!”

The other soldier came out from under the desk and tried to help her now-unconscious comrade as she explained, “The titans invaded the supply depot! What could we have done?!”

“It’s your _job_ to figure something out!” Jean yelled.

There was a sudden sound of something incoming and someone yelled for everyone to get out of the way, which they barely managed to do in time for an outside titan to stick its head through the wall.

“Dammit,” Jean said. “There’s too many of us in one place. They all rushed inside except for Jean, who could barely move. This was reality, he realized. There was no way to beat these monsters. He stared at two titans looking in the open hole until they both fell all of a sudden. Mikasa, Connie, who was carrying Armin, and a strange girl with evaporating titan blood on her swords flew in a window just afterward.

“We did it!” Connie exclaimed, tapping his gas canister. “It’s empty. We just barely made it!”

Jean stepped forward. “You’re… all alive?” he asked, astounded.

Connie turned to the female soldier. “You saved us!” He wrapped her in a hug, uncaring that he didn’t even know her name. “Thank you!” He let go of the soldier, who was now blushing, and addressed the rest of the room. “Guys! The Scouting Legion is coming! They still have gas and they can take care of the titans!”

“Where are the rest of them?” Jean asked, and he watched as the Scouting Legion soldier walked over to a broken window and took out a flare gun. She aimed it upwards and shot, a red flair flying up into the sky.

Only a minute later, there was a slew of Scouting Legion soldiers, one of them calling out orders to the rest to take down the titans surrounding the headquarters. The soldier who’d saved Armin, Connie, and Mikasa prepared to join them, but before she did she turned back to the group.

“Are you all able to retake the gas storage and refill your tanks?” she asked. “We’ll take care of the titans outside.”

Armin, who was already sort of formulating a plan of how to take back the storage, spoke up. “I think I have a plan, as long as you can hold off the outside titans.”

“We’ll do our best,” the girl said, and then she shot out of the window to go help her fellow squad members.

 

* * *

 

“We found some!” Jean exclaimed a little later, entering the room with a few other soldiers, all carrying boxes. “They’re Military Police supplies, though they are covered in dust…”

They put the boxes down and took out the guns inside, inspecting them to make sure they were still functioning.

“Will three bullets be enough?” Jean asked, loading his shotgun. “Do these guns even work against the titans in the first place?”

“It’s better than nothing,” Armin said, leaning over a blueprint of the storage area downstairs. “Even if there are still seven 3-4 meter class titans in the supply room, blinding them all at once isn’t impossible with this much firepower.” Armin went on to explain his plan to blind the titans and have a coordinated attack on all seven titans at once, ending with worrying whether his plan was the best option.

“We’ve got no other choice except your plan,” Marco mentioned beside him. “There’s no time left to think. The Scouting Legion is just barely holding the titans back, so we can’t ask them for help. This idea’s our only shot. Now, we’ve just gotta give it everything we’ve got.”

“Don’t worry,” Mikasa said on Armin’s other side. “Be confident. You’ve got a talent for reasoning out the best solution. That intuition has saved my life before, and Eren’s life too.”

“Huh?” Armin asked. “When?”

But there was no time for response, as a soldier called out, “The lift’s ready! The guns too! All of them are loaded!”

“You just aren’t aware yet,” Mikasa told Armin as they stood up. “I’ll tell you more later.”

 

* * *

 

“But can we really kill the titans without our 3D maneuver gear?” Connie asked as the seven soldiers designated to attack the titans made their way downstairs.

“Sure we can,” Reiner responded. “We’re only up against 3-4 meter class ones. It’s easy to target their weak spot.”

“Who cares how big they are?” Connie responded. “It’s always the spot at the nape of their necks…”

“Length: 1 vertical meter,” Sasha rattled off. “Width: 10 centimeters!”

“Or just ram your blade up their assholes,” Reiner suggested. “That’s their only other weak spot.”

“What?!” Connie exclaimed. “I’ve never heard of that move!”

“First time I’ve heard about it too,” Sasha added.

“Reiner,” Jean sighed. “Those might just be your last words.”

 

* * *

 

Armin’s plan went almost perfectly. They lowered the lift, attracting the titans toward the mass of humans as the other seven waited in the rafters. Once the titans were close enough, Marco ordered them all to fire and the seven attacked.

All but one of them succeeded. Sasha’s titan survived the attack, turning and approaching her and Connie. They barely got out of the way when it attacked, and Mikasa and Annie managed to bring it down, even without gear.

They finally were able to refill their gas tanks so they could make it up the wall.

Jean and Marco sat next to each other as they refilled their tanks.

“I don’t think I’m cut out to be a leader,” Jean said at one point. “So don’t say that anymore.”

“There’s something I’d like to tell you,” Marco responded, changing out his tank to fill another. “Don’t get mad, please.” He looked over at Jean. “You’re not strong, Jean,” he said. “That’s why you can understand how the weak feel. And you’re good at judging the situation correctly. You always clearly know what you’re supposed to do, don’t you? Your orders were right. That’s why I could run. That’s why I’m alive.”

Just a little while later, all of the soldiers had refilled their gas tanks and were ready to go. The Scouting Legion had gone inside to refill their own after having taken care of most of the nearby titans. They were all about to take off when Armin spotted something on a street a few blocks away. He shot up to a taller roof to get a better look. When he saw what it was, he froze.

Mikasa turned to see if Armin was ready to go, but found that he had left her side. She looked around to find him on a taller building, looking petrified. “Armin?” she asked herself quietly. She turned to the others and shouted, “Wait!” so that they wouldn’t leave without them, and then she went up to join Armin to see what he was looking at. Once she saw, she froze just like he did.

The others in Armin and Mikasa’s group looked up at the two and began to worry at their stillness, eventually deciding to join them to see what was so shocking. One by one they all joined the two on the taller building and turned to follow the others’ gazes. One by one they all froze, just like the others.

There, hobbling down a street a few blocks away on just one leg, using the buildings beside him as a crutch, was Eren Yeager, bloodied up but alive.


	5. Alignment of Pins at the Shear Point Allowing the Plug to Rotate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're finally deviating from the anime! 
> 
> Just a word of warning, I'm starting a full-time internship in two weeks so my updates might start slowing down because of that.
> 
> Also, I want to note that while I try to keep things real for the snk universe, sometimes things deviate. It's also important to note that the drills that already exist in this story are not powered by any sort of engine but by hand. The kind of drills I imagine them using are [brace and bit drills](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brace_and_bit).
> 
> As always, you can find me on tumblr at [downtheupstairs](http://downtheupstairs.tumblr.com/)!

          **lock** [lok]  _ **noun**_ ::  _1\. a devise for securing a door, gate, lid, etc. in position when closed, consisting of a bolt or system of bolts propelled_

_and withdrawn by a mechanism operated by a key, dial, etc. 2. a contrivance for fastening or securing something. 3. the mechanism that_

_explodes the charge. 4. any device or part for stopping temporarily the motion of a mechanism._

 

He wasn’t dead. That was the only thing running through Eren Yeager’s mind after the titan’s jaw snapped shut. He wasn’t dead. Why? He should have been.

It took him longer than it should have to realize that the hook from his left arm was still jabbed into the roof of the titan’s mouth. That’s why he wasn’t dead. That’s why he wasn’t dissolving in the boiling acid of the titan’s stomach. He was dangling by his arm as the titan threw his head back to swallow.

He was jostled around when the titan returned its head to its normal position, and Eren took some time to try to stand as best he could on the titan’s tongue without removing his hook so he didn’t slide back. The titan didn’t seem to notice that it hadn’t swallowed Eren completely and the boy felt the monster’s thumping steps threaten to dislodge him. He had to figure out a way out of there.

He waited for the titan to try to eat somebody else so that he could jump out before it closed its jaw, but it always tilted its head up before it opened its mouth, and Eren couldn’t climb out while dangling there. He had to come up with another plan.

It was hot. It was hotter than the hottest days of summer, and Eren didn’t know how long he’d last. He had to get out of there soon, but the heat just made it even harder to think. _Think._ He had to think.

The nape of the neck. If Eren could get there from the inside, he could try to slice it open and kill it from the inside out, escaping as he did so. It was his only choice. He had to at least try.

It was tough going, trying to move his way down the titan’s throat without being swallowed. He shuffled along, moving his hook from secure location to secure location as quickly as possible so he wasn’t without a hold as much as possible. It was hot and hard to breathe, but he had to make it. Once he was at the back of the mouth, he shot a maneuver gear wire up to the top – earning him a loud roar from the titan during which he held on for dear life – and then carefully rappelled down through the esophagus to where the nape of the neck should be. It was pitch black and he was getting dizzy with either heat exhaustion or lack of oxygen, so it was hard for Eren to tell exactly what he was doing.

Once he thought he was in the right spot, he dug in his hook and _tore_. He regretted not getting a sword somehow, but right now what he was focused on was digging. The titan roared furiously, but Eren didn’t stop working. In the end, he didn’t have the time to make two slashes to completely kill the titan, but he opened up enough of the flesh that he was able to detach his maneuver gear wires from the titan’s throat and climb out, quickly firing his wires towards a roof so that he didn’t fall from the titan’s neck. It continued to roar in pain after Eren left, but he didn’t care much anymore.

He just needed to get out of there.

 

* * *

 

The ten or so soldiers on the roof stood frozen as they watched Eren hobble along. He was alive. None of them could believe it. As hard as it was to believe what Armin said before about Eren making maneuver gear that he could use, this was even more unrealistic, even though it was happening right in front of their eyes. Eren fucking Yeager was here, and he was most certainly not eaten by a titan.

And then he fell.

His hand slipped, and he already wasn’t doing too great, and considering the amount of debris littering the entire city it wasn’t hard to imagine he’d trip fairly often.

But his fall triggered movement from those on the roof, particularly Mikasa.

Before anyone knew it, Mikasa had shot off her gear and was zipping to the ground, running the rest of the distance to her brother once she was on his level. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into a hug, no matter how dazed and disoriented he seemed to be.

She was crying. Mikasa didn’t realize she was, but she was crying. She had been so scared, so afraid that she’d once again lost the only family that she had only to find that he was alive. Barely, it seemed like, but still alive.

 

* * *

 

Eren didn’t much understand what was going on. Where was he? How did he get here?

He vaguely remembered stumbling along after getting out of the titan. Every step hurt. Why did it hurt? Oh. He had burns all over. Where did those come from?

He got picked up by… a titan? Yeah. A titan. It grabbed his leg. No, his prosthetic. It was his prosthetic, because the only way he got out was by ripping away the belt that connected it to the rest of his gear. He tumbled to the ground then. He had to get away. He had to… He tried to use his maneuver gear, but without his leg he was completely off balance. Still, it was easier than hobbling along, at least for now. He got banged up as he made his way long, scraping across roofs and sometimes missing and tumbling along the stone roads.

When he passed the corpse of a soldier on the ground, he saw their sword and decided to take the blade. He still only had one sword instead of two, and he wasn’t really able to use the gear well with his leg missing, but it gave him something with which he cold defend himself if he needed.

Eventually, he just couldn’t stand to let himself use the gear anymore. He was getting too banged up, which hurt even more given his burnt skin. He ended up hobbling around the city, telling himself that if he could just get to HQ he’d be able to find some soldier to help get him over the walls. He wasn’t even thinking about the penalty he’d face for having illegal gear. He just wanted to live.

He was almost there. Almost there, but he just couldn’t do it anymore. It hurt too fucking much. Each step was nearly impossible, having to practically hop forward every time he tried to move. He fell, and he’d fallen before, but this time he just couldn’t bring himself up. He couldn’t get up.

But then he was lifted up. Someone was hugging him. Who? He couldn’t move his head to see. He wasn’t even sure if his eyes were working. Everything seemed so dark.

Someone was crying. It was the person hugging him. Why were they crying?

More people. There were more of them now. He could feel them around him, vaguely hearing them talk. Someone grabbed his hand and linked their fingers with his. Eren’s hand subconsciously gripped it back, even though it hurt.

People were calling his name. Listening to his heart. Checking his breathing.

Was he dead?

No, he wouldn’t know what was going on if he were dead… He was almost there then, maybe. Was he going to die? He didn’t want to. He’d miss Armin and Mikasa too much. They were still alive, right? They needed to be.

He forced his eyes open. When had he closed them? He forced them open. He just needed them to be alive. As long as they were alive…

Armin was the one holding his hand. So he was alive. Eren turned his head enough to see the sleek black hair of the crying person holding him. Mikasa. Good.

Eren could hear Armin call his name when he saw his eyes open, but Eren couldn’t do it anymore. His eyes needed to close. It was too hard. He let his eyes drift shut, ignoring the calls of his name from his friends. Mikasa and Armin were alive. That’s all he needed to know. It was time to sleep.

 

* * *

 

He woke up in a bed.

It was just about as comfortable as his one back at the workshop, and for a minute he thought that he was there, and that the past few days had just been a dream, but then he shifted and everything in his body felt like it was on fire and he everything came back to him so vividly it had to be real.

He opened his eyes to see stone above him. He turned his head just enough to look at the walls and see that they were stone as well. There were no windows, just a candle almost completely burnt down mounted to the wall. Eren strained to lift his head up enough to see bars across the length of the room in front of him. A cell? Why was he in a cell?

The maneuver gear. Right. Shit.

Eren forced himself into a sitting position, grimacing as he did so. There was a shackle on his right hand attached to a chain stuck to the wall, and- Where was his arm? Where did his prosthetic go?

He forgot his pain and pulled down the sheet covering him to see that he his leg prosthetic was gone too. What happened to them? He needed them. He needed to have them. Where were they?

He felt like he was going to be sick. He could barely breathe. He _needed_ his arm and leg. Without them he was useless. He needed them. He needed to get them back.

“Hey!” he called out, trying to see if anyone was around. Maybe they’d know where his arm and leg were. He didn’t hear anything. He tried again. “Hey!”

Footsteps. They came down the hall and Eren saw a soldier come to stand in front of the bars, holding up a gas lantern to help him see. “You’re awake?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Eren answered. “Where are my-“

“Good,” the soldier interrupted. “The Captain wants to talk to you.” He started to walk off, leaving Eren again alone in the near dark.

“Wait!” he called. “What’s-?” But he realized that the man was out of hearing range and gave up, sinking back to lean against the wall from his sitting position on the bed. His clothes were the same ones he’d been wearing… How long ago was the attack? How long had he been sleeping? Well, his clothes were the same, but torn or burnt in several areas and caked in blood. Was that his own? It seemed like it. Somebody had removed his maneuver gear and the straps that attached it, probably when they took his limbs. Wait… no, he’d lost his leg out in the city. So they just took his arm then. But why? And why was he chained up here, when he was already in a cell? It wasn’t like he could do much with burns all over his body and just one arm and leg.

He nearly threw up again when he realized that people had seen him without his prosthetics. He never let that happen. He hated to be seen that way, and yet… He just needed to get them back as soon as possible.

After a couple of minutes, Eren heard voices as people walked downstairs and through the hallway.

“I-I don’t see how this is really necessary, sirs,” a stammering man’s voice said.

“Please,” another responded, and Eren thought it sounded… familiar. “We’re all intrigued to find out how it did it as well.”

How he did what? And why were there so many footsteps? He thought it would just be the Captain?

No, it wasn’t just one person but six that stopped in front of Eren’s cell. Two of them were carrying gas lamps, and once Eren’s eyes adjusted he could see that three of them were Garrison and three of them were Scouting Legion. In fact, he recognized two of the Scouting Legion members. Commander Smith and Captain Levi. He saw that one of the Garrison members – a bald man with a gray mustache – had a bolo tie matching Erwin’s. 

Eren gasped and snapped his arm over his heart in the closest thing he could get to a salute. “C-commanders!” he exclaimed, but he winced when the movement irritated his burns, especially with the shackle on his wrist causing the heavy iron chain to thump against his chest.

“At ease,” Commander Smith said.

Eren let his hand drop and decided to get right to the crux of the problem. “Where’s my arm?” he asked defensively.

“You mean your prosthetic?” Commander Smith asked. He pointed to the Scouting Legion member Eren didn’t know. “Squad Leader Hanji has been examining it upstairs.”

Squad Leader Hanji smiled and bounced up to the bars, leaning in as close as they possible could, and Eren thought that if the bars weren’t there the Squad Leader would be just inches away from his face. “It’s really brilliantly made!” the Squad Leader exclaimed. “Who designed it for you?”

“I did,” Eren huffed. “And it took me months, and I’d really like to get it back now.”

“You’re crazy if you think we’d give you a weapon after what you did!” One of the Garrison members yelled. He was a tall man with sunken eyes and a full beard and mustache.

“What did I do?” Eren asked. “I mean, other than the maneuver gear-“

“Which,” the same man interrupted. “As you should know, is a crime punishable by death.”

“That’s insane!” Eren couldn’t help but yell. He had known the consequences of what he’d done, but he still thought it was crazy. “I just wanted to help!”

“It doesn’t matter what you wanted!” the man yelled, seeming furious and even… scared?

“Kitts,” the bald Commander warned. He stepped forward and looked at Eren with a small smile. “Eren,” he said. “I must say, I’m impressed.”

“Impressed?” Eren echoed.

“Yes.” The commander bounced his heals. “Rico here-“ he motioned back to the other Garrison soldier, “-tells me that you used to be a cadet.”

The soldier named Rico looked at the clipboard she was carrying and read off, “Eren Yeager. Hometown: Shinganshina. Enlisted at age twelve; discharged less than a year after a training accident that led to the amputation of the left arm and leg. After which, according to friends, he moved to Karanese to apprentice under blacksmith Hagen Schneider.”

“You also have a reputation for being quite inventive,” the bald Commander added. “According to both your friends as well as Commander Smith here.”

“Yeah,” Eren said. “So?”

“Your friend…” the Commander started.

“Arlert,” Rico supplied.

“Yes, Arlert. He also told us that he specifically saw you get eaten by a titan.”

“All we want to know,” Erwin continued. “Is how exactly you’re alive. Arlert assures us you were swallowed, and that you didn’t even have a sword with you at the time.”

Eren took a deep breath. Ok. He could explain this. It was pretty intimidating, what with six pairs of eyes boring into him, which was even more nerve-wracking given that he didn’t have his arm on, but he could explain.

“My arm,” he said. “I jumped in the titan’s mouth-“ he ignored the way most of the soldiers behind the bars staring at him like he was crazy. “-in order to save Armin and pull him out, and I stuck the hook in its gums, and then when it closed its mouth, I was still stuck there. So I tried to get back out when it opened its mouth again but that didn’t work, so I used the hook to get to the back of its mouth, shot the gear hook at the top of its throat, lowered myself to the nape, and then ripped it open.”

“With your hook?!” Squad Leader Hanji asked, gripping the bars again.

“Uh. Yeah,” Eren answered. “So, can I get my arm back now?”

“He’s still a criminal!” The soldier who was earlier called Kitts protested.

“It’s not like I can go anywhere anyway!” Eren argued.

The two Commanders looked at each other and seemed to have some sort of conversation with just their eyes. Eren looked at the others and realized that Captain Levi had spent the entire meeting leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, looking off to the side and seemingly uninterested in what everyone else was doing. He had just noticed Eren’s staring and turned to look at the boy when the Garrison Commander spoke, drawing Eren’s attention.

“Eren,” he said, bouncing his heels again. “As I’m sure you’re aware, the Military Police will need to take you to the capital for trial.” Eren nodded to show that he understood. “However, it will take several days, perhaps weeks, for the message to get to the capital and for their soldiers to arrive. We could possibly be convinced to put in a good word for you, see if they decrease your sentence.”

“Really?” Eren asked, and then grew suspicious. “What do you want from me?”

The Commander started to pace. “With the hole in the wall, Trost is completely uninhabitable. If somebody happened to come up with a plan to seal the hole, and that plan happened to work, I’m sure everyone within the walls would be extremely grateful.”

Somebody? Why wasn’t he just being direct and saying what was on his mind? The Commander winked at him and Eren caught on to what he meant. “Oh,” he said, a look of recognition coming over his face.

The bald Commander smiled. “We’ll have someone come down with dinner later.” He started to turn and walk away, but Eren interrupted.

“Wait!” he called. “If I can’t get my arm, can I at least get pencil and a paper?”

The Commander smiled. “We’ll see what we can do.” He started walking again, the rest turning to follow, but Eren called after him again.

“What about my friends?” he asked. “Armin and Mikasa. Are they ok? Can I see them?”

“Your friends are perfectly fine,” the Commander assured him, and then he left, not answering the other question before he and the others went back upstairs.

Eren flopped back on the bed, wincing at the rough treatment of his burns. It reminded him of when he first started working at the forge and the heat from the fire was almost like standing naked in the summer sun for an entire day. But he had better things to think of now. He had to come up with a plan.

He wasn’t good at things like this. He took months to come up with his designs. He wasn’t good at thinking under pressure. But he needed to come up with a plan to save Trost. It may be the only thing keeping him from being executed.

 

* * *

 

A couple of hours later, as Eren still lay in his bed nearly pulling out his hair trying to think, he heard footsteps. His candle had burnt out, so he was in the pitch dark until three people carrying lanterns stopped in front of his cell. Once Eren’s eyes adjusted to the light, a smile broke out on his face.

“Armin!” he exclaimed. “Mikasa!”

The two were just as happy to see him, and Eren moved to go over to the bars – at least, as close as the chain on his wrist would let him – but then he remembered he didn’t have his leg, so he couldn’t get off the bed.

“Are you two ok?” Eren asked. “I didn’t think they’d let me see you.”

“Well,” someone said, and Eren recognized the third person there as Squad Leader Hanji from earlier. “That Kitts guy tried to complain that we didn’t need three people to deliver a pen and pencil, but Pixis just pointed out one to carry the pencil, one to carry the paper, and of course someone to bring the key!” Hanji held up a brass key and then went to unlock the cell door.

As soon as it was open, Armin and Mikasa rushed in and over to Eren, hugging him tightly.

“I saw you get eaten!” Armin exclaimed. “I thought you were dead!”

“Um,” Eren said, uncomfortable with the hugs because of his burns. “I, uh, cut myself out from inside its neck.”

Armin pulled away. “What?! Nobody’s ever done that before! How-“

“Why were you there in the first place, Eren?” Mikasa interrupted, obviously very angry. “You should have left during the evacuation.”

“I couldn’t just leave you guys!” Eren protested. “I couldn’t just sit by and do nothing when I was able to help! Not after the last time!”

Mikasa pulled away and looked down, understanding. If she were in Eren’s place, she knew she would probably do the same thing. “Still, you should have known that if you didn’t die, you’d get caught.”

“I saved Armin,” Eren said with finality. “It was worth it.”

Beside him, Armin felt a guilt deeper than he could have ever imagined. He nearly cried, and would have if he didn’t want so much to make sure the situation didn’t get any worse.

“Anyway,” Eren continued. “I need to come up with a plan to save Trost.”

Armin and Mikasa both stared blankly at their friend. “What.”

“It’s my only chance at not being executed, pretty much. It’s a long story. But I’m not good with plans. It takes months of trials to make my things.” He turned to Armin. “Armin, you’re good at plans. I need your help. Wait. Give me the pencil and paper.”

Mikasa handed him a pencil and Armin gave him a few sheets of paper on a piece of wood.

“Figured you’d need something to write on,” Armin explained.

Eren smiled. “Thanks.” He drew a few lines on a sheet of paper. It was a little more difficult not having his other hand to stabilize the board, but he’d gotten used to it after years of sketching in bed before he went to sleep, having already taken off his arm. Mikasa reached out to stabilize the board, but after one quick glance from Eren she thought otherwise.

“Okay,” Eren said. “How big is the hole in the wall?”

“I don’t know,” Armin said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. Mikasa did so on Eren’s other side. “I didn’t actually get to see it.”

“Neither did I,” Mikasa said.

“The fifteen-meter class titans had to stoop a bit to get in.”

Eren, Armin, and Mikasa snapped their attention to Squad Leader Hanji, still standing by the cell door. The Squad Leader spun the key they were holding around their finger and entered the cell. They walked over to Eren and picked up his wrist. “I forgot I had the key to this, too,” the Squad Leader said, unlocking the shackle. “We decided you didn’t need it as long as you were in the cell.”

“It’s not like I could go anywhere with one leg, anyway,” Eren mumbled.

“Well, that doesn’t seem very true for you now, does it?” Hanji asked, finding a place on the small bed to fit themselves, too. Apparently they were going to help. “I’d say the hole was about twelve meters high and six meters wide.”

“Um, thanks,” Eren said, drawing a hole about that proportion on the sheet of paper. It was much easier to do without the shackle. “So. We have to fill that.”

“There’s that big boulder in Trost that would probably fit,” Armin offered. “If you could move it.”

“I thought about that,” Eren said. He’d thought of several scenarios in the hours he’d been down here, but none of them were feasible. “I don’t see any way we can move it. There’s just no possible way without something huge.”

“Yeah, you’d need a titan to move that thing,” Armin mumbled. “So, what else can we do?”

“Well,” Eren said. “I’ve been thinking…” He drifted off and looked down at the picture.

“Eren…?” Armin asked.

“Shh, he’s thinking,” Mikasa said, watching Eren stare at the picture of the hole they had to somehow titan-proof.

Eren didn’t continue until a few minutes later. “I don’t know how we’d do it,” he preempted. “But, what if we don’t fill the hole?” He put the pencil down and drew a series of horizontal lines through the hole. “We make metal poles, huge ones, but enough that we can still move. We make them out of the same steel the sword blades are made out of, so they’re strong. If we can’t use that, we use iron. Doesn’t sharpen well, but we don’t need sharp. We just need strong.”

“How do you attach them to the wall, though?” Armin asked.

“I think I know how,” Eren answered. “Well, I looked at the bars on this cell and it gave me an idea.” Everyone turned to look at said bars. “What they did is solder them to a long, thin piece of iron on both ends so they’re all attached and then nail that into place on top and bottom. Nailing it into stone isn’t a problem if you’ve got a lot of time and a sharp drill. But then you’re depending on the nail to take all the weight. I could pry out a couple of nails and that entire wall would just fall down. We need each bar to be what’s holding the weight. Now, I know I’m already in trouble for having maneuver gear-“

“-and using it. And opening up the black box. And altering it,” Squad Leader Hanji added.

“Yeah,” Eren said. “Thanks. Anyway, but if I could just get the fan mechanism… And gas. I’ll probably need a lot of gas.”

“Eh, I’m sure we can get you that,” Hanji shrugged as if it was no problem.

“Good. So use that to create this like… gas powered drill… I need to work on the design…” He stared at the paper again, and again the other three let him just zone out for a while.

After a while, Eren finally scrunched up his face and said, “I need more time to think about that.” He looked over the design on the page, which was just the hole with bars sketched in going horizontally every meter or so. “I wish we could add in vertical ones for stability… wait…” He squinted at the paper for a few seconds. “If we make short vertical ones and solder them… That would work.” He sketched in vertical beams every meter or so between the horizontal ones.

He finished up his sketch and looked up at the others. “I just don’t know how to do this,” he admitted. “Well, how to do it without being eaten by titans.”

All of them adopted their own thinking faces, trying to come up with a solution. Squad Leader Hanji got up and paced. Armin’s eyes went wide and he looked like he was trying to stare the soul out of the stone floor. Mikasa looked ready to kill somebody. And Eren just stared at his paper again.

They thought for at least an hour. Sometimes one of them would throw out an idea, but someone else would point out how it wouldn’t work, and they went back to the drawing board. Eventually, someone brought down dinner for Eren. They told the others that they weren’t allowed to be down here any longer, too, so they had to leave.

Before they left, Armin put his gas lamp on the floor to the right of Eren’s bed.

“That way you won’t be in total darkness once we leave,” he said, and then they left Eren to go eat dinner upstairs.

 

* * *

 

Eren didn’t intend to sleep. He meant to stay up all night thinking. But he was so tired, and his body still hurt like hell, so at some point – without a window he couldn’t tell the exact time – he drifted off, still thinking of ways to keep the titans away.

The last thing he could’ve expected was to be woken up by somebody yelling “NIGHTTIME!” at the top of their lungs.

He jolted up, reaching for the lamp on his right and turning it on before he realized that the person in front of him had a lamp of their own.

“Squad Leader?” he asked when he noticed he processed who it was.

“Oh please,” they said. “Call me Hanji. Only Moblit calls me Squad Leader.”

“Um…” Eren said, scratching his head. He was still mostly asleep. “Why are you here?”

“Right!” Hanji yelled, and Eren winced again at the loud noise as Hanji gripped one of the cell bars. “Nighttime! That’s our answer. Titans become inactive after a while of exposure to darkness! It would mean no new titans would come towards the walls, and we can take out the ones there easily! Of course, bigger titans can take hours to settle down so it might not work on them, but for the majority, all the three to five meter classes, and even some seven classes, they should be at least fairly sedated an hour or two after dark! If you can work at night, and get it done quickly, we can have people take care of any incoming titans while you work! It’ll be harder in the dark to kill titans but… I’m sure we could figure out a way to do it! We have Mike, after all, so he’ll sniff out any incoming titans.”

Eren had no clue who Mike was, but he thought it was a good idea overall. “Do you really think it’ll work?” he asked.

“I can’t think of any other way to make sure no titans are around. We’d still need people fighting, but a lot fewer. It’s the safest way I can think of.”

He thought about it for a minute. “I don’t think I could get all that work done in one night. Especially since it’s summer. Nights are short. Even if we build the poles here and hoist them up the walls and had them waiting there to put in, I think it’d just take too much time. That’s the issue.”

“What if you had help?” Hanji asked. “If you showed other people what to do?”

“Well, if you won’t give me back my arm, and since my leg’s over in Trost, I’m gonna need help anyway,” Eren mentioned.

“I’m sure we can find a way to get those back to you if this plan is really good,” Hanji said. “But if you had other people, could you do it?”

Eren thought. “If I can figure out my nail-thing and be able to make a few of them, then yeah. Maybe.”

“Great!” Hanji exclaimed, and then they squealed and danced around. “This is so exciting!” they yelled.

“Um, Sq- Hanji?” Eren asked, and the Squad Leader stopped dancing and turned to face him to hear what he had to say. “Now that we have a plan and all, can I go back to sleep?”

“Oh! Right! Well, I’ll see you in the morning, Eren!” Hanji called, skipping away.

Eren lay back down. All he had to do was figure out how to power something, something like an awl, almost, to dig a hole into the stone. If he could figure that out, they might all just have a chance.


	6. Translation of Reciprocating Linear Piston Motion into Rotational Motion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate Title: Saving Trost and Making Jokes About Lube

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we finally get a bit of ereri interaction here! That's just the beginning I promise, though like I say it is a slow build. 
> 
> I really try to make this as realistic as possible, and I did so much research into steelmaking and drills and every invention ever in this story, but there's only so much I can do and still make the story work. So when I was getting frustrated because things didn't make realistic sense (there's no way that'd cut through the rock but shh) I just went and looked at the official schematics for the maneuver gear and repeated to myself "nothing needs to make sense. nothing needs to make sense." Because have you seen those things? They make the least possible sense. Absolutely none. So I get some creative license too, even though I try to make things real. 
> 
> A significant portion of this chapter is written because I wanted to make a joke about lube. That is all.
> 
> Reminder that you can follow me on tumblr at [](http://downtheupstairs.tumblr.com/>downtheupstairs</a>!)

**drill** [dril]  ** _noun_  **::  _1\. a) a shaftlike tool with two or more cutting edges for making holes in firm materials, especially by rotation. b) a tool,_

_especially a hand tool, for holding and operating such a tool. 2. training in formal marching or other precise military or naval movements._

_3. any strict, methodical, repetitive, or mechanical training, instruction, or exercise. 4. the correct or customary manner of proceeding._

 

“Come on Jean, stop being a wimp!”

“I’m not a wimp! It’s a million degrees in here!”

Eren smirked and continued filling the mold he was working on with molten steel from the converter that oxidized the iron and kept it liquid while he added the other necessary elements, in this case mostly just carbon and chromium. “The heat’ll do you good, horseface!” he called out to Jean, who was one of the soldiers helping him make the steel bars for his plan. Eren and five of his other friends from his training class when he was a cadet were working in the forge in the town just outside the Trost walls that the military had commandeered when they decided to go with Eren’s plan. Unfortunately, none of them except Eren had any experience working in a smith. At least the blacksmith who owned the shop offered to help, because none of the others were much help at all other than for holding things. “Maybe you’ll get blisters and finally do something about those baby hands of yours!”

“Well at least I have two of them!” The two were both forced to yell their insults over the sound of hammering and fire.

“I may not have two of them,” Eren responded, unshaken by the joke about his limbs. “But I do have a hook that’d fit real nice in your eye socket!”

Jean just laughed and wiped the sweat off his brow before returning to prying open the mold of a finished steel bar. “Ok, ok. Point taken.”

They’d been working practically round the clock since Hanji, Armin, and Eren explained the plan to Commanders Smith and Pixis. They agreed to the plan, and so while Eren and some soldiers were working in the forges on the physical materials necessary, Hanji, Armin, the Commanders, and several others were up on the walls making sure that their nighttime plan would work; that they’d have enough visibility to take care of any incoming titans and that they wouldn’t be more active than expected. They figured out the timing for when Eren and his team would be able to work on the hole as all those in the forge constructed the materials.

After working for a couple of days, Eren trusted the town blacksmith enough to finish making the steel bars so that Eren could figure out the rest of the details. He not only had to figure out how to make his gas-powered drill but also a system to haul the steel bars up the walls and then lower them back down after moving them over to the gates.

Getting the bars up and down the walls actually turned out not to be that difficult. He devised a pulley system, attaching four grooved wheels to the top of the wall in each area and threading four very, very long wires around each – he thanked the memory of the woman who had first invented the wire used in maneuver gear, as the strong, easily-available steel wire was what really made this pulley system possible – and just designed for groups of four soldiers to tug the wires to bring the bars up to the top, where soldiers would be waiting to receive it and bring around to the hole in the wall, where they would slowly let the wires down to lower the bar to those working on the hole. It was pretty labor-intensive, especially since they needed to physically carry the bars along the walls the entire length to the hole. In all, Eren estimated needing about twenty people to take care of it all, but since it was a relatively riskless job it wasn’t hard to find soldiers to do it.

The more difficult part of the plan was the design for the gas-powered drill. Eren had managed to procure the fan system of some 3D maneuver gear under the stipulation that he was under observation the entire time he was working on it. Hanji wanted to be his supervisor so they could help him make it work, but they were busy with their studies on the wall so Captain Levi got assigned to watch him.

As if he wasn’t already nervous enough about this plan working and not killing people and also not getting executed once they took him to the capital, now he had to invent in front of his childhood hero. He’d admired Captain Levi ever since before Maria fell. He was everything Eren had ever aspired to be as a soldier… though, that wouldn’t ever be who he could possibly become now, it seemed. Even if he didn’t get executed, he’d surely get years in jail. He knew he should feel foolish for ever thinking that his plan to become a military engineer would ever work, but he didn’t. Even now, he was still determined to help humanity. He wasn’t only trying to save Trost for his own benefit, after all. He was doing it because Trost was an important city that couldn’t afford to be abandoned.

It didn’t help that he didn’t have his smithing arm or any of the several hand attachments he used for his work. Hanji and Mikasa had offered to go back into Trost to get his things from the inn, which thankfully was still in tact. The higher-ups had tried to stop them, but they went anyway, Hanji claiming it was part of their experiment to see that it really would be safe to conduct a night mission in Trost. It had gone surprisingly well, because they waited until the dead of night, so they only had a few titans to deal with. So Eren got his invention and his prosthetics back, all except the one lost somewhere on the streets of Trost. But he hadn’t brought his work attachments with him – he’d never expected he’d need them – so he was stuck with either his sharp gear hook, his softer regular hook, or his riding hook, which wasn’t good for anything but riding. He decided to go with his gear hook, since he could at least pin things down with it, but it still made it hard to hold things.

He didn’t like to ask for help, but in one particular case he had to. And what’s worse, he had to ask it from Captain Levi. He needed to unscrew the fan from the other internal mechanisms, but the fan wouldn’t stay still and his hook wouldn’t work to hold it there.

Eren tried about twenty times to do it on his own and then sat there for ten minutes trying to work up the courage to say something (as well as suck down his pride for having to ask) before he finally opened his mouth.

“Um,” he started, and Captain Levi turned to look at him from where he’d been sitting and looking out the window. “Would you mind…” He was hoping the Captain would understand what he meant from the way Eren looked down meaningfully at the equipment in front of him, but he just stared blankly, even looking a bit pissed off. “Uh… Could you… come here and hold something for me?”

The Captain still looked blankly at him, but after a second he stood up and walked over.

“Just… if you could hold this here…” Eren said, pointing to the blade. Captain Levi went to grip it and Eren quickly added, “Gently!” He then realized that he’d just nearly shouted at his childhood hero and Humanity’s Strongest, Captain Levi, so he meekly added, “Please.”

Captain Levi still didn’t say anything, just followed Eren’s instructions and watched as the younger carefully removed a few tiny screws from the mechanisms and gently pulled it out.

Once everything was settled, Eren glanced up at the Captain, only able to actually look at the man for a second, and said, “Thanks.”

The Captain pulled his hand away and looked over the mess Eren had in front of him. “Do you need anymore help?” he asked, curious about everything the younger was doing.

“I don’t need any help!” Eren snapped out of instinct. Captain Levi raised an eyebrow at the extreme reaction and Eren flushed with embarrassment. “Sorry,” he said, not taking his eyes off his work in front of him. “Just, I don’t like it when people try to help when I don’t ask.” He sighed and continued, more muttering to himself, “I’m not useless.”

He wasn’t expecting Captain Levi’s scoff. “Of course you’re not,” he said. “You saved your friend, didn’t you? And now this.”

Eren focused on his work so as not to show too much emotion at hearing that from his hero. His hero didn’t think he was useless. It took him a second to remember how to breathe. “I know,” he finally said. “That’s not how most people think though.” Once again he finished by muttering under his breath. “I mean, just ask the military.” He suddenly realized who he said that in front of and looked up at the Captain, eyes wide. “I mean- Not you- It’s not that-“

Captain Levi breathed out a huff of a laugh through his nose. “Believe me, kid. If anyone hates the military, it’s me.”

“Oh,” Eren said, and then he thought over the words and got confused. Humanity’s strongest, the man worth more than a hundred soldiers alone, hated the military? How did that even work?

Apparently the Captain saw the confusion on his face and explained, “Long story.”

“Oh. Ok,” Eren answered, deciding he should get back to his work. He started to assemble the part the connected the drill bit to the fan. He didn’t miss how the Captain didn’t move back to his place at the window but instead stayed by the table, watching him. It was pretty awkward.

“What are you doing?” Captain Levi eventually asked, surprising Eren.

He had to figure out how to explain this. He wasn’t good at explaining. “Um. Ok. So.” He looked around the table for the hand drill he had there as a reference, holding it up to show the Captain when he found it. “This is a drill, right? You wind the string up, and then you put one hand on top to keep it steady, then pull this bar here down, and it spins and drills into the wood. I think I have a scrap piece around here…” He found a scrap piece of wood and showed the Captain what he was talking about, using his hook to pull on the bar. “This isn’t strong enough for stone, though, which is the problem.

“So I’m making a drill that is powered by gas.” Eren motioned to the things he was actually working on after putting down the hand drill. “Basically the gas spins the fans, like with the gear, but the spinning of the fans is going to turn the bit.”

“Bit?” Captain Levi asked. “Like for horses?”

Eren couldn’t help but chuckle a bit for that. “No,” he said. He picked up the hand drill and showed the drilling end to the Captain. “This is the bit.” He put it down and started fiddling with his work again. “But making it isn’t as easy as it sounds.”

Captain Levi didn’t think it sounded very easy at all.

“Thankfully,” Eren continued, perfectly fine with talking to his hero now that he’d gotten going. Later when he had time to just sit and think he’d realize how annoying and obnoxious he must have seemed to the Captain. “These things are built strong.” He tapped the case holding the fan with his hook. “Since they have to be strong enough to pull up a person, they’re just strong enough to cut through the rock. And since I already finished the mold for the bits, one of the displaced blacksmiths from Trost offered to make all of them. Don’t know how they’ll have room in the forge but they’ll find a way. So I just have to finish figuring out the rest of the assembly and then get all the parts and assemble… five more of these-“ Eren was obviously exasperated with all the work. It didn’t help he’d only gotten about seven hours of sleep the past three nights, total, and he still had burns and scratches all over his body. But he had to push through. “And then I’ll be done, and just have to…” He sighed again. “Have to actually get them in the wall.”

He’d actually totally forgotten as he was speaking that he was talking with Captain Levi. It was only once he stopped that he realized he’d been rambling. “Sorry,” he said, blushing again. “I didn’t realize I was rambling…”

Captain Levi didn’t respond. He just pulled out a chair and sat down to watch Eren work.

Ok, so, a little bit more extra pressure. That was all right. Eren could deal.

And he actually could. For the next few hours Eren fiddled around trying to figure out just how to assemble this invention of his, and Captain Levi just sat and watched. Every now and then Eren would ask him to hold something, and he assured the Captain that if he had all of his tools from his own workshop – he considered the Schneider’s workshop his own, really, since he did more work there now than Mr. Schneider anyway – he wouldn’t need the help, but Captain Levi didn’t really mind or care. At some point someone came in bringing the Captain some tea, which he sipped as he continued to observe Eren’s work. There was only one incident during the entire afternoon.

Captain Levi was sipping his tea as Eren searched around table, where all of his materials were. Not finding what he was looking for, he absently wondered, “Hm, I might have to go get some lube…”

The Captain spit out the tea he’d just sipped, leaving Eren in shock and confusion as the man tried to compose himself. “Lube?” Captain Levi asked as he wiped at the spilled tea on the table. “Why would you need that?”

Eren was still confused. “For the rod that attaches the bit to the fan,” he explained. “So that it’ll move more easily.” He started wondering aloud again then. “Oil-based lubes are more available, but silicone-based ones really are better…”

Captain Levi nearly spit out another sip of tea but managed to catch himself just in time and swallow it. “Are they?” he asked, smirking to himself now. The kid had no idea what kind of double entendres he was making.

“Yeah…” Eren said, not paying attention to the Captain at all anymore, as he was too busy thinking. “But the military uses silicone lube, so we should be able to get it I’d think…”

Captain Levi realized Eren was talking about the grease they used on their gear and pushed out his chair to stand, grabbing his now-empty teacup. “I need to get a rag to clean this mess up anyway, so I’ll see about your lube,” he said with a smirk, and then he turned and left the room, even though he was supposed to be supervising Eren at all times. He returned a few minutes later with both a rag and a bottle of the lubricant used to maintain maneuver rear, handing the latter to Eren before he sat down. After he finished wiping up the spilled tea, Captain Levi leaned back in his chair again and continued to watch Eren work.

 

* * *

 

Just a couple of days later everything was ready. All of the steel bars were made and hauled up the wall and carried over to the hole, ready to be lowered as needed. Eren had finished constructing all six of his drills and had taught the others who were assigned to use them how they worked, even testing out drilling some small holes in some rock samples. The defense team was ready and prepared to hold off any non-sedated titans while the construction team was working. Most of the defense team was made of up Scouting Legion members, but Mikasa and a couple others from the top ten and some of the more elite Garrison members joined as well. The construction team had about eight hours to try to finish the job before the sun came up.

Eren was nervous. This was _his_ plan, and if anything went wrong it was on his head. If anybody died… no, he couldn’t even think of that. He wouldn’t be responsible for that. He just had to do his best and hope everything went well. That was all he could do.

They waited to head over to the hole in the wall until it was already dark, to avoid attracting titans to the area. Once it was dark enough, they headed over and the defense team took their places while the construction crew rappelled down the wall to their places. The supply crew was up on the wall ready to lower the beams as needed as well as provide extra gas or equipment as needed. Eren had been given his gear back on a temporary basis, and he had made the necessary adjustments to make up for the different leg he was using, which was his day leg, the one with just a carved wooden foot.

The soldiers had to work as quickly as possible, so all six of the construction crew set to drilling the holes right away. They focused on the horizontal bars, because they could get them in first and the titans from the outside wouldn’t be able to get through the hole. Eren just wanted to add the vertical bars soldered in to add stability. He suggested that after they eliminated all the titans in Trost and the city was rehabilitated that they try to build the wall up again, also, just to be safe. No Scouting Legion expeditions would ever be able to leave from Trost again, but it was a necessary sacrifice in order to save the city.

As expected, Eren headed up the construction crew. He marked on the walls where to drill and made sure everybody was drilling correctly as he worked at his own section. Even with the gas, it was still slow going. It took about half an hour to drill one hole to the necessary depth, and with one bar every meter, that meant they needed twenty-four holes just for the horizontal bars and another twelve for the vertical ones. Thankfully, with six of them working, it only took about three hours to finish it all. Some people kept getting distracted by the titans that would sometimes come scarily close, because it wasn’t part of their training or nature to stay still when a titan was approaching. But they had to keep focused on their duties and trust that the defense squad would take care of it and keep them safe.

Once the holes were finished, then came the hard part. They had to fit the bars into the drilled holes. Fitting one end in wasn’t that hard, other than the fact that it took all six of them to hold the beam up because of its length and weight. Fitting the other end in, however, required it to be hammered in from the side. This was no easy task, so Eren was the one who ended up taking on that job. The others may be strong from their training, but unlike Eren they didn’t have the years of toning the arm muscles necessary for work like this.

Eren may only have two limbs, but they were toned enough for someone with all of them. Years of working in a forge doing hard physical labor left Eren tan and muscular, though Eren never thought of such things as romance. Part of that was his determination – he couldn’t be distracted from his inventions and desire to help save humanity – but part of it was knowing that nobody would ever willingly choose to spend their life with a cripple. He may be confident in his abilities to function but Eren couldn’t deny that his missing limbs were scars that rendered him permanently unattractive, no matter how muscular or toned he was.

Fitting the bars was tiring work. For each one, Eren was hammering with all his might for nearly ten minutes. He did, at one point, switch with Reiner, who did a few of the bars before admitting defeat. He may have more obvious, visual muscles, but they were toned for fighting and using the gear, not for hammering.

By the time they finished with all the horizontal bars, they only had about an hour and a half left before daybreak. Eren had no clue what was going on with the defense squad – there seemed to be fewer titans snapping at them now but Eren wasn’t sure if that was the defense squad’s doing or whether it had to do with the darkness – because he’d been focusing on his own work. He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted, no matter how worried he was about Mikasa. At least Armin was staying up on the wall with the supply squad, so he wasn’t in any danger, really.

Once they finished the horizontal bars, the construction crew zipped back up to the top of the wall to decide what to do next.

“Do you have enough time to do the vertical supports?” Armin asked as Eren gulped down water from a canteen. He was damn tired.

Once he was finished drinking, Eren wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Not all of them,” he said. “But we could get started. I’d feel better about it if we did. Don’t want to risk a titan tearing one of the bars out. I’ll go get started.”

They didn’t have to use the pulleys to bring down the shorter bars – two of the construction crew members could carry one down with them. They only had three torches with which to melt the solder, because they had to borrow them from the nearby forges, but it was all right because this was a more specialized task. It also helped to have another person there to steady the bar while Eren or the two others he’d taught how to do this spread the solder and hold the bar there while the joint cooled and solidified.

By the time a member of the defense squad came down to let them know it was time to pack up, they’d only gotten about a quarter of the way through fitting the vertical supports. Thankfully, Armin had suggested as they started to lower the beams that they should do them strategically so that instead of working their way up from the bottom the crew worked on two lines of the vertical supports so that there was at least some support on each horizontal bar.

They finished it up the next day, but on the day in between Eren learned that two members of the defense squad didn’t make it. He spent the entirety of the next day in his cell alone. He was responsible for those two people’s lives. Because of him they died. If his plan had only been better… He didn’t know either of the fallen soldiers; they were Garrison members, that’s all he knew. But he still couldn’t sleep. He imagined all the ways it could happen; all the ways the titans could have eaten them, and it always ended with the image of his mother. He’d shake out the memories and try to move on but he couldn’t.

It was a good thing he didn’t pass out the next night as they finished up soldering in the vertical supports, because as soon as he was led back to his cell he flopped onto his cot and was dead asleep. He wouldn’t be needed for the expedition to exterminate all of the titans still inside Trost, and since he was still technically a prisoner all he had to do was wait to hear his fate. The Commanders had sent word to the Military Police about Eren’s help and contribution in reclaiming Trost, but that couldn’t guarantee any leeway on his sentence.

He had always trusted the military. Eren had known what would happen if he got caught but… the way the Commanders made it sound, the Military Police didn’t much like listening to reason. They seemed hesitant about how much their recommendations would help. All Eren wanted to do was help… He supposed that he already had; that he’d helped save Armin and then recapture Trost, but he still had so much else he could offer. He knew that. If he could cut himself out of a titan and invent a gas-powered drill and save Trost at only fifteen, what else would he be able to do? Maybe he’d be able to come up with something that’d finally kill titans. It wasn’t likely, and he knew that too, but he had to try. He would never be someone who could willingly walk to his death. He would never be someone who gave up the fight. He would never be someone to just accept his circumstances without trying to change them for the better.

Eren opened his eyes and looked up at the darkness of his cell, a realization washing over him.

He had to run.


	7. Trituration, or Reducing the Particle Size of a Substance by Grinding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eren's second plan is set in motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like this chapter. Lots of smart cookies in the jar.
> 
> Also making fun of the MP who doesn't love that?
> 
> Try to find the Wizard of Oz throwback in this chapter because I totally did it on purpose and I am unashamed. I just saw my cousin (a professional actress I'm so proud <33) in a production of it so it's on my mind.
> 
> As always, my tumblr is [downtheupstairs](http://downtheupstairs.tumblr.com/)!

           **mortar and pestle -**   _ **noun**_ :: _ancient device for milling by pounding;_   **mor·tar** [ **mawr** -ter] :: _a receptacle of hard material, having a bowl-_

_shaped cavity in which substances are reduced to powder with a pestle;_ **pes **·** tle **[ **pes** - _uh_ l,  **pes** -tl] _a tool for pounding or grinding_

_substances in a mortar._

 

Eren was getting better at making plans. It turned out that pressure was a good teacher. Whereas he used to only be good at plans that only involved nuts and bolts, now he could do more than make inventions. He could scheme. The plan to save Trost had come into being under great pressure, and it was successful, so Eren hoped that his plan for escape would be just as good.

But it wasn’t easy.

You’d have to be pretty stupid to think that running away within a confined area was a good idea. Eventually they’d catch up with him. There was a loud part of Eren’s conscience that told him to just give it up. No matter what he did, he’d get caught eventually. As long as he was stuck within the walls, he’d never be able to win.

Thankfully, there was a louder part of Eren’s brain telling him that he needed to try. He needed to fight. He needed to buy as much time as possible. Once he was on the run, he could figure out a more long-term plan. He wouldn’t be able to actually escape, but maybe he could change the government’s mind. He knew he’d need to come up with something great to sway their opinions, though, which was why he wasn’t worrying about it now. Greatness took time, but all he needed at the moment was survival.

 

* * *

 

His plan began the next time Armin and Mikasa came to visit him, the last time before he was given over to the MP.

They were allowed in the cell, but there was a guard outside the door now, so Eren knew he’d have to be careful about what he said. He was sure the guard would say something to someone if he heard Eren talking about running away.

“I can’t believe I’m going to die,” Eren told his friends, needing to keep up the charade. Granted, if his plan was unsuccessful he most definitely _would_ be sent to execution. “I never thought… I mean, I always thought it’d be a titan; that I’d go down fighting.”

“Eren…” Armin sighed.

“There has to be another way,” Mikasa insisted. “We’ll figure something out. Maybe you could-“

“No, Mikasa,” Eren interrupted. “Where would I even go? No matter what, they’d catch me. I might as well just face the music, and maybe they’ll go easy on me.”

Mikasa looked upset, like she was going to protest again but decided against it.

Eren sighed. “Knowing that I might not be here much longer makes me… It just brings up memories, you know? And it’s not like they’re important ones they’re just… random.” He glanced up at the guard to make sure he wasn’t listening in too much or looking this way, and then looked intently at Armin. “Remember that time, Armin?” he asked, his calm voice not matching his intense stare. “When we were all little, and you couldn’t sleep? Your parents were desperate; you hadn’t slept in days, so they brought you to my dad, and he gave you poppies, and you slept for like two days straight.”

Armin furrowed his brow and he and Mikasa both looked at Eren like he wasn’t right in the head. “Eren, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Armin said, confused. “Your dad never gave me-“

“ _Right_ ,” Eren interrupted as if he just remembered something. “You wouldn’t remember. In order to get you to take them-“ His gaze grew even more intense. “-he had to crush them up in your food. So you wouldn’t even remember that. It was a while ago.”

Armin stared at Eren for a while, trying to read his face. Mikasa stared as well, though more out of concern than contemplation.

“Eren,” Mikasa sighed. “I don’t think you-“

“No,” Armin interjected, finally having caught on to what Eren was saying. He nodded curtly. “You’re right, Eren. I think I remember waking up after that. I just didn’t remember.”

Nodding back, Eren let his stern façade slip and went back to his normal expression. “Yeah. I didn’t remember it at all until it just popped up in my brain the other night. It was weird.”

“I would assume anyone in your position would be remembering lots of strange things,” Armin said.

“I still don’t understand,” Mikasa said. She was annoyed. She felt very out of the loop, like there was something important going on right in front of her that she wasn’t clued into.

“Mikasa,” Eren said, turning to look at his adoptive sister. “I’ll always remember when you first joined our family. Dad and I had come a long way from Shinganshina to your family’s house up in the mountains down in the southeast there, right on the outside of Rose. I know in a lot of ways it was a bad day, but I’m still glad you decided to come home with us.”

“Eren,” Mikasa said again, softening at the memory. “I’ll always be glad, too, but what-“

“I love you guys,” Eren interrupted, looking between his two friends. “You know that, right?”

“Of course,” Armin said as Mikasa nodded.

“And you know I’ll do anything to keep you safe.”

They both nodded this time.

Eren took a deep breath. “That’s why I need to do this,” he said. “To keep you safe. I don’t want them coming after you because of me.”

There was a long silence that hung among the three of them, and none of them could meet each other’s eyes.

“I’m going to miss you two,” Eren finally said. “Keep each other safe, alright?”

“Alright,” they confirmed.

They hugged after that for a long time. Mikasa started crying, which made the other two start crying, and they ended up just hugging until the guard told the two guests that they had to leave.

Armin walked down the basement hallway with purpose after they left, wiping his eyes, a sense of purpose in his step.

“Where are you going?” Mikasa asked, easily matching stride with him but wondering why he was walking so fast.

Armin looked forward, determined, and didn’t slow his step as he answered.

“The druggist.”

 

* * *

 

“It’s time.”

Eren looked up at Commander Smith, who had appeared just outside his cell. There were several other Scouting Legion members with him, and Eren assumed they were his escort to the waiting Military Police carriage.

He sighed and stood up from his bed. They had allowed him to keep his leg with the carved wooden foot, at least so that he could walk to the carriage, but last night they’d taken his arm. He was pretty pissed about that, but at least they gave him a button-up shirt, so that he could tie off the sleeve below his stump and no one had to actually see it. He was still annoyed that he didn’t have an arm on, but he supposed it was only logical. His prosthetic arms could very easily be used as weapons. They _did_ have metal hooks, after all.

Commander Smith stood by his side as they all walked out of the dungeon. The rest of the Scouting Legion members escorting him surrounded them, including Captain Levi, who was walking just in front of Eren.

“Now, Eren,” Commander Smith began. “As I’m sure you already know, you will be taken by a Military Police escort to their Headquarters in the capital.” Eren did already know all this. Why was the Commander repeating it all? From what little Eren knew of the man, he seemed like someone who wouldn’t do many unnecessary things. “There,” Commander Smith continued. “You will take part in a military tribunal, where evidence of your crimes will be submitted and General Darius Zackley will decide your fate.”

Eren froze. ‘Evidence of his crimes will be submitted’? That meant… That meant they needed to bring his maneuver gear to the capital as well, and probably the arm that went with it. So if he tried to escape, which he was going to do, all of that would be somewhere in the caravan taking him to Sina.

The Commander seemed to think Eren froze for another reason, and he put a hand on the boy’s back to get him to continue walking. Commander Smith smiled softly and continued talking. “I know,” he said. “The General of the entire military seems a little extreme, but given the… unique circumstances, particularly with your help saving Trost, everyone thought it should be taken to him.”

But Eren didn’t care about any of that. He wasn’t planning on getting that far. He was going to be long gone by the time the Military Police made it back to the capital. He just had to hope that Armin had succeeded on his part.

There were crowds of soldiers lining the path from the barracks to the carriage. Eren saw a lot of his friends there, but he was specifically looking for Armin and Mikasa. He wasn’t sure if Mikasa knew about his plan to escape, if she’d caught on or if Armin had clued her in, but he could at least try to tell if Armin had succeeded.

He finally caught sight of them at the front of the crowd about halfway between the carriage and barracks. Eren made eye contact with them as he approached. They both looked horrifically sad, but Eren knew that could come from either the fact that he might die or the fact that he might become a fugitive. There was also the chance that his escape would fail. Honestly, his chances were not good no matter what happened.

“Good luck,” Armin said as Eren passed him. His words were simple, but it was enough for Eren to let him know that he had probably been successful in his part of the plan. Eren hoped that it was communicated clearly and that Armin had done what he’d intended for him to do, but he had to go off of luck now. That was worrisome. He’d never been particularly lucky before, if his lack of parents, destroyed hometown, amputated limbs, and criminal status was any show of it.

But Eren knew Armin was smart. He’d chosen his words carefully, wishing him luck. It could be easily written off as him wishing luck at the trial. So Eren could only trust Armin’s intelligence that he had known what Eren had hinted.

Or at the very least, he had to hope.

The Military Police sent as Eren’s escort were quite obviously not happy to be there, and they took that anger out on Eren. One of them roughly grabbed Eren’s remaining arm and jerked him into his designated carriage, barely allowing him any time to stumble up the steps to get in. Once Eren was half-sitting on the bench, hands grabbed at the buttons connecting his prosthetic to the stump of his leg. Even though it was probably ill advised, Eren couldn’t help but try to push away the hands.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Get off me!”

More hands grabbed his arm and leg and held him back as the first soldier undid the buttons and removed his leg. Outside the carriage, the soldiers who had crowded around to watch were expressing their confusion at what was going on.

Eventually, Eren’s leg was removed and taken to another carriage and Eren settled down, knowing there was nothing he could do about it now. It’d certainly make things more difficult, but he could figure something out. He was totally pissed off that they’d taken it, and the end of his stump was now visible, but thankfully he had it taped up to make it more comfortable to wear the prosthetic, so it wasn’t completely bare.

He was joined in the carriage by four members of the Military Police carrying guns, which he thought was a little excessive given that he had only one arm and leg, so it wasn’t like he could do very much physical damage against them the way he was. Eren couldn’t be sure how many other people or carriages were in the caravan, but he got the feeling that there weren’t a lot. Probably just one other carriage for his maneuver gear and prosthetics and supplies, and some other soldiers on horses to accompany them. However many they were, Eren was hopeful that his plan would make sure that they were all taken care of so he could get away.

 

* * *

 

It took several hours before Eren’s plan could be put in motion.

They stopped along the forest road near dark. They’d set out just after sunrise, so they’d put a good deal of distance between themselves and Trost, which Eren was glad for. They were pretty much in the middle of nowhere. The carriage pulled off to the side of the dirt path and slowed to a halt, the members of the escort nearly jumping out before it even stopped, talking about how ‘starving’ they were. Perfect.

Eren called after them, deciding now would be the best time to try to get his leg back. If it didn’t work, it wouldn’t be the end of his plan, but it would certainly be helpful to get it back now. “Hey!” he called out the carriage door. “Hey!”

A disgruntled soldier peeked into the carriage. “What?” he snapped.

“I have to piss,” Eren said. He actually did, but he was mostly doing this for his plan.

The soldier sighed. “Fine,” he said. “Come with me.”

He’d barely gotten the words out before Eren responded, “Well I kinda need my leg for that. Unless you want to carry me.” In reality, he’d sooner hop than be carried, but he thought it would do well to play it up a little.

The soldier grunted and walked away from the door, grumbling, “Ok, let me check.”

Someone else came back a few minutes later with his leg, so that was a win. After Eren put his leg on, he climbed out of the carriage and was escorted by two soldiers into the trees, where they told him to do his business. It was a little weird to have to pee in front of other people, but thankfully the soldiers were as uncomfortable as he was and looked away.

When they escorted him back, they didn’t bother having him go back to the carriage. All of the soldiers were sitting around on the side of the road, digging into the salted meat that was their food rations for the journey. They didn’t offer any to Eren, but he had pretty much expected that. If they had offered him some, he would have needed to refuse.

Instead, he just waited and listened to their conversation as they ate.

He thought his plan was nearly shot when one of them looked up from her food and asked, “Does this meat taste weird to any of you?”

But thankfully another soldier just said, “It’s from the outer walls. All their food tastes funny.”

“Sure isn’t as good as the stuff we get in the capital,” another added. _This_ was the reason Eren had always hated the Military Police. They were soldiers. They weren’t supposed to be eating like kings.

The MP escort hadn’t even finished eating yet before it happened. Eren had a feeling it’d be that quick, from what he’d learned from his dad when he was younger. One by one they all started nodding off, unable to stay awake. Eren watched as they tried; as they freaked out while their comrades refused to wake up, trying to figure out what was going on but all inevitably passing out. They had all eaten the poppy-dusted meat. They all went under.

Once that had happened, Eren took his chance. He went to the other carriage and found where they’d been keeping his gear and prosthetics. They were locked up, but it wasn’t that hard for Eren to find the key in one of the guard’s pockets. He attached his arm first and then got on his gear. He wasn’t going to need it right away but he probably would later, and he wanted to be prepared. He took a couple of blades from some of the passed-out soldiers’ gear, and hopped on one of the soldier’s horses. It was a little more difficult, not having his riding prosthetics, but he could make do. He’d have to.

Just as he was about to leave, he had another idea. He got off his horse and untied all the others, unhitching the ones attached to the carriages as well. He sent them all off, making sure they got trotting on their way down the road. That should buy him some time before there was a full military search for him, and there were some things he needed to do before he went into hiding.

After that, Eren got back on his stolen horse and was off.


	8. Transfer of Ink via Pressure on a Print Medium That Rests on an Inked Surface

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did someone say worldbuilding?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok I'm not all that happy about the way this chapter came out, but it's got a lot of important information. But worldbuilding! I'm deciding not to care so much about the tiny details of the snk world so some things may not line up directly but whatever. Also backstory on a character that doesn't even exist in canon but I like him so suck it up. This'll probably be the last time it comes up anyway.
> 
> For all of you who are reading more than one of my current fics, I've decided to set up a cycle. Basically it keeps me from focusing too much on one fic and neglecting my others. So after this, ICSMWO will update, and then Waiting Up, then this one again, and so on.
> 
> As always, you can find me on tumblr at [downtheupstairs](http://downtheupstairs.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Edit: whoops! forgot to add the definition and title xDD

           **fris·ket** [ **fris** -kit]  _ **noun**_ ::  _1\. a light rectangular frame, attached to the typman of a hand printing press, that caries a parchment sheet to_

_protect the nonprinting areas. 2. any material that protects areas of a work from unintended change._

 

He needed to get to Karanese. Eren didn’t exactly know what he would do on the run, but he knew before he did anything he had to get back to the workshop. He had to take care of some things first.

Even pushing the horse to its limits – at least it was a military horse so it was better suited for travel – it still would take him a few days. He risked stopping into one town not too far away from where he’d first run away just to get some supplies. He’d snagged a bit of money from one of the soldiers (though not too much; he never intended to be a thief) so he could purchase another set of clothes and some food so he wouldn’t need to waste time hunting. Eren also bought a cheap duffel large enough to hide his gear so he could sneak the gear into Karanese without seeming suspicious.

He tried to travel mostly at night, to avoid passing people on the roads, and for the most part he was successful. When he noticed people about to pass, he tried to hide his prosthetics and make them look normal, knowing that that’s what people would remember most about him. If he could keep people from being able to provide information on where he was going, he was going to try to do it. Of course they would probably guess that he’d try to go back to Karanese, but still, he wanted to keep a low profile.

Eren reached the wall right after dusk a few days later. He left the horse a little ways out of town so as not to be questioned about having a military horse, instead masquerading as a weary traveler going by foot. He adjusted his prosthetic arm so it was covered and holding his bag over his shoulder. His leg was covered by his pants and boot, the prosthetic only distinguishable by his slight limp. But a slight limp wasn’t very suspicious in this day and age, so no one would be any wiser to it.

He wasn’t sure if he should say goodbye to the Schneiders or not. He wanted to, but he didn’t want to get them in trouble or risk them telling the police that he visited. Eren didn’t think they’d tell on him, but that could only get them in trouble for lying if they were found out.

So instead, Eren just headed to the workshop, making sure Mr. Schneider wasn’t there, and up to his loft. He packed up the rest of his prosthetics in another bag along with several of his small inventions and his sketches for other ones. He wouldn’t be able to take everything, but he couldn’t leave it all behind.

He almost thought he was caught when the workshop door opened, and he quickly extinguished his candle and tried to hide.

It didn’t work very well.

“Eren?” Hagen Schneider’s voice called.

Well, it was only Mr. Schneider and since he was already caught, Eren scrambled around for another match and relit the candle. Matches were never that easy for him, which was why he preferred gas lamps and lanterns, but candles were a lot cheaper so he learned to deal with them..

“Thank god you’re alive,” Hagen said, letting out a sigh of relief. “When we heard about Trost, and then didn’t hear from you…”

“No, I’m alright,” Eren assured him.

Hagen looked long and hard at Eren and what he was doing. “What the devil are you doing?” he finally asked, noting the suspicious way the boy was acting.

“It’s a long story,” Eren said. “But I’m on the run from the Military Police.”

Mr. Schneider considered for a minute. “Well, you’d better get your butt down here to explain, then,” he finally decided.

Eren sighed. He wasn’t sure how much time he had, but he supposed he owed his mentor an explanation. The man had practically been a father to him the past few years. He grabbed the bag with his maneuver gear and brought it down to the workshop area. Hagen went over a table and Eren took out the box and showed him its contents.

“Oh, Eren,” Mr. Schneider worried. “What did you do?”

“I know,” Eren said. “I bought it a while back and fixed it up and altered it so I could use it and…” He looked at Hagen imploringly. “You have to understand, I wasn’t going to use it where anybody could see, but then the Colossal Titan attacked, and I couldn’t just let my friends die without doing anything to help!”

Hagen took a deep breath and then exhaled. “I think you’d better start from the beginning.”

So he did. Eren told the man all about his late-night inventions and his intentions with them and trying to show his most recent one to Commander Smith and then the attack and saving Armin and slicing the titan from the inside. He told him about being held prisoner and then his plan to save Trost and his new gas-powered drill and how it didn’t make the MP change their minds at all. He finished it off by telling him about his escape plan and stealing the horse and how he got back to the workshop.

Once he was finished, Hagen stood there in silence for a good five minutes.

“You can’t run forever, boy,” he finally said, scratching his chin.

“I know that,” Eren admitted.

“So what’s your plan?”

“I still need to figure that out.”

“Well, you’d best think of something soon.”

“I need to convince them I’m not a criminal; that I can help them,” Eren said, hoping Hagen would have ideas for how he could do that.

“I don’t think you’ll ever be able to do that, son,” Hagen told Eren.

“No,” Eren protested. “If I can just think of something great, something that will completely revolutionize-“

“That there is your problem,” Hagen said, wagging his finger. “You’re trying to revolutionize.”

“What? You think I can’t do it?” Eren accused, peeved that his mentor, who hadn’t doubted his ability in years, would do so now when he needed support the most.

“No, no,” Mr. Schneider assured him. “It’s not that you can’t do it. It’s that the government doesn’t _want_ a revolution.”

“But if I can help defeat the titans-“

“Eren,” Hagen interrupted, trying figure out how to explain the problem. “Have you ever, in your life, heard of people doing things a new way, of a new invention coming along and changing things drastically?”

Eren tried to think. “No…” he eventually realized. “But that could just be-“

“I haven’t either,” Hagen admitted, interrupting the boy again. “As long as I’ve been alive, there has never been a significant change in the way things are done. Why do you think that is?”

“But…” Eren didn’t want to believe this. He _couldn’t_ believe this. “What about the Scouting Legion! They’ve improved how many people survive their missions!”

Hagen scoffed. “The government doesn’t care about the Scouting Legion. Most of them still come back dead. They’ll never be enough to be a threat.”

“What do you mean, a threat?”

Mr. Schneider sighed and rubbed his chin. “I had a friend, a few decades ago, who was just like you,” he said, and Eren didn’t understand what this had to do with anything but he trusted Hagen would eventually get around to it. “I think that might have been one of the reasons I decided to take you on. He loved to… well, he loved to think. Always coming up with these big ideas about how he was going to change society. Last I knew, he had this big idea about printing or something like that.”

“Printing?”

“Yeah, something about how to make copies of notices and letters and all that without having to handwrite each one or whatever. He asked me to help make him one, saying he’d need stamps of each letter.”

“I never heard about this,” Eren said, confused.

“That’s because it never actually got made. He told me he was going to tell the government about his plan, see if they would help fund it because it could help spread news easier throughout the walls or some crap like that, I don’t remember.”

“And?”

“And a few weeks later he disappeared. I went by his house after that and all of his drawings and notes were gone. His wife wouldn’t say anything about where it all went.”

Eren balked for a minute. “That… that could just be a coincidence,” he said. “You don’t know that the military was behind that.”

“You’re right, I don’t,” Hagen admitted. “But it is suspicious. And you can’t deny that there should have been other inventions that’ve caught on in the past hundred years.”

“I mean…” Eren said, trying not to believe this. “Yeah, but… Well, if that’s true, why didn’t you say anything when I was going to show the military my invention?”

Hagen shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d actually be able to do it. And if you did, I didn’t think they’d take you seriously.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Eren replied, rolling his eyes.

“I didn’t want to crush your dreams if I didn’t have to. But I should have known not to underestimate you. You’re one determined kid, you know that?”

Eren smirked and said, “I’ve been told. And don’t you worry, I’ll make something so great they won’t be able to ignore it.” He climbed back up the ladder to his loft to finish packing.

Down in the workshop, Hagen sighed to himself. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

 

* * *

 

“Arlet. Ackerman.” The two soldiers looked up from their table in the mess hall. They’d been spending the last week and a half taking care of the remaining titans in Trost. Since it wasn’t an immediate danger – Eren’s fix to the wall seemed to be holding up well – they were taking their time, focusing more on safety than getting it done quickly, so it would take a few more weeks at least. During that time, the recently-graduated cadets were staying just outside Trost along with the displaced Trost Garrison members.

“Come with me,” the soldier in the mess hall doorway ordered, and Armin and Mikasa stood from their table and followed him out of the hall.

“Um, sir?” Armin asked as they quickly walked through the hallways. “May I ask where we’re going?”

“Commander Dok of the Military Police wants to see you,” the soldier curtly responded.

Armin and Mikasa exchanged incredulous looks and walked quicker.

They were led to an office on the top floor of the barracks, where they were met by not only the Military Police Commander but the Commanders of the other branches of the military as well. It made sense, they supposed, as the other two Commanders had been staying in the area to head the mission to reclaim Trost.

“Ackerman and Arlert, sir,” the soldier who’d brought them there announced before being dismissed.

The three Commanders looked at the two soldiers.

“Take a seat,” Commander Smith told them.

“Is there a problem, Commanders?” Armin asked.

“I’m afraid there is,” Commander Pixis responded. “When you last talked to Eren Yeager, what did you discuss?”

“We were reminiscing,” Armin answered without hesitation. “About growing up together.”

“Anything in particular?”

“Just about how he met us, mostly. And how he’ll never forget us. Things like that,” Armin explained.

“Did something happen?” Mikasa asked, not happy about being interrogated without knowing why.

“Your friend escaped his Military Police escort before reaching Sina,” Commander Dok explained.

“He _what_?” Mikasa exclaimed, getting out of her seat because of the surprise.

Armin gasped with feigned surprise. He knew he made the right choice by not telling Mikasa about Eren’s plan, instead telling her that the poppy story was from before she met Eren and that he went to the druggist for other reasons. Mikasa wasn’t a very good actor and her reaction would really help sell their innocence, but he still felt bad about lying to her about it.

“I’m sure you’ll understand why we need to make sure you two had no part in his escape,” Commander Smith said.

“Wh- no!” Mikasa insisted. She turned to glance at Armin to confirm, and he nodded along. “No, he was telling us why he _couldn’t_ run away!”

“And why would that be?” Commander Dok asked.

“He said it’d be stupid to run because there was nowhere for him to go in the walls,” Armin told him, making sure to appear still in shock from the news. “He thought you would go easier on him if he complied.”

“Well apparently that wasn’t quite true,” Commander Dok pointed out.

“I’m just telling you what he told us,” Armin assured him.

“Their stories do match up with what the guard told us,” Commander Smith mentioned to Commander Dok, who turned to look at him.

“There’s no way he didn’t tell them anything,” Dok claimed.

“I promise, he didn’t say anything,” Armin insisted.

“I can’t believe I didn’t notice…” Mikasa said to herself.

Commander Dok scowled and looked out the window to think for a few tense minutes. Finally, he turned around and set his eyes back on Armin and Mikasa. “Well, your friend was right about one thing,” he told them. “There’s nowhere in these walls for him to run where we can’t find him.”

 

* * *

 

Eren had left the next night, wisely deciding not to give Mr. Schneider any clue as to where he was going. He just said his goodbyes to him and his wife and then left. Hagen tried to convince him not to even try to get back on the government’s good side, but given that there wasn’t really another option, Eren was hesitant to believe it. Hagen kind of understood. When he’d first found out about his friend, he didn’t want to believe it either. And for Eren, who’d spent his whole life dreaming of being a part of the military and was willing to devote his life to it, losing faith in it and the military would just be that much harder. It wasn’t easy to lose faith in one’s government.

Hagen sighed and dragged himself up the ladder to Eren’s loft. He looked around at everything that was left behind. There was a lot left behind that Eren wasn’t able to take with him, so most of his sketches and designs were still there. There were even little wooden or metal models of some things. Hagen had never realized just how much time Eren had spent inventing, and he had no clue so much of it was actually useful. Hagen had always thought that they were just toys, that none of them would amount to anything. If he’d known, he would have put a stop to it, or discouraged it as much as he could given Eren’s determined attitude.

The police would be knocking at the door any day now, interrogating Hagen and his wife and searching the house and workshop. So Hagen only had one thing left he could do. He took everything left in the loft save for the furniture and brought it down to the workshop, where he stuffed it in the forge and lit a match, throwing it on the papers and setting them all aflame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today on "whoops this kinda turned to dystopia"


	9. A Duel Inclined Plane Used to Split Wood Into Two Parts by Pressure Concentration at the Blade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taken so long to get this chapter out! Like I said, with my internship it's taking me a long longer to write each chapter, so for the rest of this summer it'll probably be pretty slow. Hopefully it'll pick back up again in fall, but I make no promises. I promise I'm not abandoning this or Waiting Up or I Can't See My Way Out, though!
> 
> As always, you can follow me on tumblr at [downtheupstairs](http://downtheupstairs.tumblr.com/)! Also, if you like Eruriren (aka Eren/Erwin/Levi), you should follow [threelosersinlove](http://threelosersinlove.tumblr.com/), where I'm one of the mods!

           **ax** [aks]  ** _noun_** ::  _1\. an instrument with a bladed head on a handle or helve, used for hewing, cleaving, chopping, etc. 2. Jazz Slang. any_

_musical instrument. 3._ **the ax** _, Informal. a. dismissal from employment. b. expulsion from school. c. rejection by a lover, friend, etc._

_d. any usual summary removal or curtailment. **verb (used with object)**_  ::  _4._ _to shape or trim with an ax. 5. to chop, split, destroy,_

_break open, etc., with an ax. 6. Informal. to dismiss, restrict, or destroy brutally, as if with an ax. **idiom:**_ **have an ax to grind** ::  _to have_

_a personal or selfish motive._

Eren chose hiding over running. It was only logical, given the situation. He knew the moment he decided to do this that hiding was the only choice. He couldn’t hide in plain sight, even though that would have been easiest. He couldn’t just create a new identity and cut his hair and hide amongst the crowds in a city. No, his amputated limbs made him stand out a lot more than a sore thumb.

So he hid completely. There were areas within the wall that were pretty empty of people, where farms or forests dominated the land. Eren made himself a little home in a forest that was used as a major source of lumber inside the walls. They never clear-cut so as not to destroy the forest completely; instead, the lumberjacks only cut about one in every four trees so that they wouldn’t deplete their source all at once. It was easy enough for Eren to stay out of the way of any lumberjacks, since they didn’t come by very often to begin with.

He found himself in a little natural cave in the forest where he slept and kept his things. There was a small river about half a mile away where he could get water and bathe, and since he had the swords from his maneuver gear and his sharp hook, it wasn’t too hard to hunt. He couldn’t use the actual gear, because he would have run out of gas too quickly and not have a way to refill it, but that wasn’t really an issue. He had everything he needed.

His main issue was boredom. He was lonely, and he didn’t have much to do since he wouldn’t even be able to go into a town to buy tinkering supplies without getting caught. So he spent his time thinking.

He thought a lot about what Hagen had told him, about the government. It was still hard to believe. He didn’t _want_ to believe it. Eren had never exactly been the biggest fan of the government – they’d sent thousands of people, including Armin’s grandfather, out to slaughter after all, and let the Garrison be vastly underprepared while guarding the walls. So Eren had his fair share of problems with the government, but to think that they were actually keeping any progress from happening… It just didn’t make sense.

At least with all the free time he had, Eren had plenty of time to let his mind run in circles trying to figure it out.

First, he looked at the evidence, and when he did, he couldn’t refute it. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he had never heard of any major innovations before. As long as he’d been alive, nothing had changed. They’d lost Maria and a lot of things obviously changed for Eren, but for the larger population there was nearly nothing.

And there should have been. Sure, they added cannons to the walls, but there was never a chance of them working in the first place, and cannons had existed before; they weren’t anything new. They weren’t inventions.

There was nothing before Eren’s lifetime, either, or at least not that they learned about in school or that parents would tell their kids. In school they learned about the beginning of the humanity’s devastation, and the move into the walls, but most of their history ended there. After that they just learned the names and dates of the kings and queens for the past hundred years and all about their boring, uneventful lives. They didn’t learn about anything before the walls – whenever a student asked, they were told that everything had been lost in the frenzy to get to safety. But how could that be? Could Eren truly believe that all of the books, all of the records had been left behind? That nobody thought to bring some with them or write down what they remembered?

He knew for a fact that wasn’t true. Armin’s book was from before the walls. It couldn’t be the only one that survived; coincidences like that don’t happen. There had to be more, but… where? And why was it illegal to have pre-war literature? If they didn’t exist, then why would there need to be a law against it? It just didn’t make sense. There was absolutely no way for Eren to justify it.

And speaking of Armin’s book… Eren found himself thinking of Hagen’s friend’s machine. It fit with Armin’s book – the carefully placed letters, each one exactly the same, the unique lettering that would take months to painstakingly write with a pen – but that would mean the same invention existed before the wall and that Hagen’s friend came up with it on his own, and that seemed too big a coincidence.

Or maybe, more likely, it wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe Hagen’s friend didn’t come up with it on his own. He could have had his own book from before the wall that gave him the idea. The logic was sound, the story fit, and the more Eren thought about this, the more he was convinced.

Hagen had been telling the truth, and there was no option other than to believe that the government was really trying to keep them suppressed. The only question that remained after that realization was:

Why?

 

* * *

 

The leaves had begun to fall and mold when Eren was finally found.

He’d been down at the river, washing and getting a drink, and he felt something was off even before he saw his cave. The hunting he’d done living out here had trained his reflexes, tuned his ears so he could hear the soft rustle of papers inside his cave even from a few feet away.

He ducked behind one of the trees that helped obscure the cave entrance, peering around it to find the branches he used to further camouflage the opening had been pushed aside, and in the dim light that reached inside Eren saw a man, crouched because the ceiling was only about three feet high, skimming through Eren’s papers, where he’d sketched and planned out new inventions and written down some of his thoughts on what was going on with the government. He’d written in tiny, cramped letters, because he didn’t know how long the stack of paper would have to last him, but his musing and theorizing had taught him how important records were, for they must be if they had the power to topple a government.

The man was young, but older than Eren, probably a good eighteen or nineteen years old. He had dark skin and very short hair, almost but not quite as close-cut as Connie’s. And he was going through Eren’s things, flipping through a stack of papers, stopping every now and then to read one of them.

Moving quickly and quietly, Eren slipped inside the cave behind the man and slung his good arm around his arms and torso, swinging his hook up to rest at the guy’s throat. He was glad now that he’d taken to wearing his sharp hook around rather than the more rounded one.

“What are you doing here?” Eren seethed, pressing the tip of his hook to the hollow of the man’s throat.

The man froze, papers fluttering to the ground as they slipped from his hands, and then he stammered. “I- I- I’m just looking, I swear! I wasn’t gonna take anything!”

Eren wasn’t exactly sure what to do next. Even if he wasn’t planning on stealing anything, the guy had still found him. He knew where Eren was and at any time could go tell the police, which meant Eren couldn’t just let him go. But the only other option he could see was to kill him, and there was no way that Eren could do that. He wouldn’t become a murderer.

He looked around for an idea and saw an ax leaning against one of the short cave walls. So the guy was a lumberjack; that made sense. “Hold still,” Eren commanded, slowly pulling away from the man and reaching over to grab the ax, getting it out of the man’s reach while still holding his hook out as a threat.

The man slowly turned and got a good look at the prosthetic arm Eren wore. He glanced down at Eren’s feet, too, but they were covered by his boots. The man looked back up at Eren, at his face where Eren was nervously but bravely staring back. The guy squinted. Tilted his head to one side, then the other, then held it straight again. His eyes widened. “Are you-?” he began, and then stopped, and then began once more. “You _are_!”

And Eren knew the guy knew who he was. He was cursing on the inside but on the outside held his chin up. “I am,” he said, mustering all his confidence.

“But you-“ the man started, still unable to get out a full thought, though that didn’t matter much to Eren, who understood regardless.

“I did,” he answered.

The man motioned to the fallen papers without taking his eyes off Eren. “And these-?”

“They’re mine,” Eren confirmed.

“Shit,” the man responded, running a hand through his almost-nonexistent hair as he let himself fall back on his butt, evidently tired of or too shocked to crouch.

Eren stayed on his knees with the hook out, his hand on the shaft of the ax at his side. He was glad his swords were still in his trunk, that he kept them in there when he wasn’t wearing them, and that it didn’t seem the man had found them.

“So you’re that kid, huh?” the man asked as if he hadn’t just almost had a hook in his neck.

“Eren,” Eren supplied.

“Kazimir,” the man responded, and it took Eren a moment to realize the guy was supplying his own name. “They have a picture of you up in the square, y’know. Your hair was shorter, though.”

“Maintaining my appearance hasn’t exactly been a priority,” Eren said dryly. His hair was almost to his shoulders now.

“And they got the nose all wrong,” Kazimir continued.

“Well it was probably drawn by someone who never even met me before, so.”

“Yeah.” Kazimir nodded, and then he smiled, his teeth bright in contrast to his dark skin. “But I still knew it was you!” He almost seemed _happy_ to see Eren. There was probably a reward on his head that the guy was eager to earn.

Eren looked pointedly down at his outstretched hook arm and back at Kazimir. “I wonder how you knew.”

Kazimir smiled brighter. “Well, that may have tipped me off a little.” He relaxed where he was sitting, and Eren wondered why he was so comfortable when there was somebody pointing a weapon at him and had almost just killed him. “So,” he said as Eren wondered exactly what he was going to do with the guy. “What’d you do, anyway?”

Eren was confused. “You don’t know?” he asked.

“Nope,” Kazimir shrugged. “Sign just said you were wanted for military crimes.”

“Why aren’t you scared then?” Eren pressed. “For all you know, I’m a murderer.”

“You are not a murderer,” Kazimir said, shaking his head and still smiling.

“How would you know?”

“I was reading your papers,” Kazimir said as if that explained everything. “And I heard about what you did in Trost, y’know. Fixing the walls?”

Eren let his hook lower slowly in shock and realization that the guy wasn’t planning on running away or hurting him. “You did?” Eren asked.

“Yeah. Officially they didn’t say anything about you helping, but word gets around y’know? Even to the tiny villages out here.”

“Huh,” Eren said, his mind reeling and fitting this news together with the rest of the pieces of his theory about the government.

“So what _did_ you do?”  Kazimir asked again. “’Would’ve thought they’d give you a fucking medal for saving Trost, not a death sentence.”

Eren went over to his trunk and opened it up, pulling out the case with his maneuver gear and showing it to Kazimir.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So that’s why they have a wall-wide manhunt for you?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s… extreme. I thought the punishment for illegal gear was jail time.”

“I also ran away from the police.”

“True.”

They were silent for a moment, the guy across from Eren obviously deep in thought before he spoke up again, looking at the papers on the ground.

“Does this have anything to do with what you were writing there?” he asked.

Eren sighed. “I really don’t know. Probably.”

“Is all that true then? They’re really stopping people from changing things?”

“As far as I can tell.” Eren put away his maneuver gear and sat down on the floor across from the man.

“Shit. Why?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“Hm.”

The both of them sat there in silence, as if in that one moment they could figure out the answer. After a few minutes, Kazimir spoke up again.

“I won’t rat you out, y’know,” he said, causing Eren to look up at him curiously. “I’m not gonna tell them where you are, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Why not?” Eren asked. “I’m sure there’s a reward on my head. I wouldn’t blame you.”

Kazimir frowned. “You don’t deserve to die, no matter what the government says. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Eren wasn’t sure how much he believed that – he _did_ drug a whole squad of Military Police members, after all – but he decided not to mention that. “And if what you say about the what they’re doing is true, someone needs to do something about it.”

Eren didn’t know what to say. He’d been so adamant about fighting when his enemies were titans, but… These were people. They were the government. They were the people who kept things in order. They were always there, never questioned, and that’s just the way it was.

But then Eren found himself wondering why. Why hadn’t anyone ever questioned them? There were surely things that the government did wrong, but nobody ever did anything about it. Even when they sent throngs of refugees outside the walls to die, there were only minor grumbles. A few people would go out in the streets and yell about it, but people wrote them off as crazy and they were arrested for public disturbance.

Nobody ever _did_ anything, though. Nobody even thought about it. They were the government. They were permanent. They were just _there_ , and what would happen if they weren’t?

Kazimir had a point, though. Eren couldn’t just think about his own survival anymore, like he’d been doing for the past few months. He couldn’t even consider the titans to be the real enemy now. Who knows if they’d have figured out a way to defeat them if the government hadn’t been suppressing any change?

“You’re right,” Eren finally answered. “Someone does. But how am I supposed to do that?”

Kazimir smiled. “Well, you’re not gonna do it on your own, my friend. Count me in.” He held out his hand, which Eren took and gave a firm shake. Kazimir looked down at the papers on the floor and started gathering them together. “Now why don’t you explain exactly what’s going on here?”

And there, in the middle of the forest that spanned from Karanese to Trost, a spark of change lit in that cave, and a fire began to burn.


	10. A Small Piece of Metal Consisting of a Blade and a Bow to Serve as a Security Token for Access to a Locked Area

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it's been so long! I'm sorry for being late on updating - I really kept meaning to after I was done with my full-time internship this summer, but then my fibro decided to flare up, and so like last weekend my hands got so cramped that at points I couldn't even type. And on top of that, college and applying for study abroad and all that. Also, I put some stuff I was planning to put in the next chapter in this one, so that shifting around took some extra time. So I apologize for how long this took, but thank you for not getting on my case about it, you've been great! :D 
> 
> As always, you can find me on tumblr at [downtheupstairs](downtheupstairs.tumblr.com/)!

           **key** [kee]  ** _noun_  **::  _1\. a small metal instrument specifically cut to fit into a lock and move its bolt. 2. any of various devices resembling or_

_functioning as a key. 3. something that affords a means of access. 4. something that secures or controls entrance to a place. 5. a book,_

_pamphlet, or other text containing the solutions or translations of material given elsewhere, as testing exercises. 6. something that_

_affords a means of clarifying a problem._

 

Kazimir came back to Eren’s cave every day that week. He did have actual work to do, would sometimes spend most of the day felling a tree not too far away and then help Eren hole up and hide in his cave as he brought some of the other lumberjacks around to haul the wood away to be chopped more precisely back in town, but he always made time to sit with Eren and listen. He’d talk about himself sometimes, about his large family, about growing up in the village – a tiny little town of lumberjacks and foresters called Waldwick, where everyone knew everyone and was related somehow to half the people they knew – but mostly Kazimir liked to hear what Eren had to say.

And Eren had lots of things to say. He wasn’t always sure where to let his mind take him next, but Kazimir would help by prompting with questions or asking for details. Eren talked of his inventions, especially his modifications to the maneuver gear. He talked briefly about how he lost his limbs, but then extensively explained his prosthetics and how he made them to get away from the memories of that painful experience.

This sort of technical language didn’t interest Kazimir too much, particularly because he’d grown up in a place where everything that could be was made of wood, and the nearest smith was half a day’s travel by horse. The most Kazimir knew of machinery was the simple tool that was his ax, the most treasured item anyone in Waldwick could possible own.

What Kazimir really wanted to hear about was the government. He and Eren spent plenty of time sitting and theorizing about why the government would be doing what they thought they were doing. Kaz and Eren had about the same education on the government, despite the fact that Kazimir went to school until he was twelve, like all children were supposed to, and Eren had stopped after the fall of Maria because there was certainly no room for refugee kids in the Rose schools, which were already full to bursting.

They tried to figure out what to do about their theories, but it wasn’t easy. None of this had happened before, or at least to their knowledge. Nobody, including them, had ever heard the word “revolution” before, not even whispered in the alleyways or the back rooms of bars, or whispered on the winds of dissatisfaction. Instead, the two were stuck with a distinctly human longing for change for which they had no word to describe. To them, this was an abstract idea that sounded as good as a fairy tale and just as unobtainable.

Things got easier when Kazimir brought one of his sisters to help.

Katlego was short and strong. When she stood at full height she barely brushed her brother’s shoulder, though she was just over a year older than him. But when she stood one could tell she was raised with the trees, from the way she planted her feet as if roots sprouted from her toes into the earth to how she held her chin high to stand at her full height, seeming to grow towards the sun as the plants did. Kazimir stood the same way, and Eren wondered if it was familial or if it came from being born in the forest.

Katlego’s hair, Eren thought, was like millions of tiny springs sprouting from her head, circling like a halo around her face when she looked straight at him. When she wasn’t smiling, her jaw was set and eyes perfectly black and nearly boiling in their heat, the only outlet for some fire burning inside. There was a certain roundness and softness to her muscles and body, but despite that, and despite all her similarities to the surrounding trees, Eren got a gnawing feeling that it would take more than an ax to fell her.

She would get along with Mikasa, Eren thought, and probably Annie, too.

But when she smiled, her mouth was wide and full of bright teeth, and Eren could definitely see the family connection between his two new friends. She was smiling when Kazimir introduced them.

“Eren,” Kaz said as the three of them stood outside the cave. “This is Katlego, my sister. She’s here to join the cause. Kat, this is Eren.”

“Hello,” Kat greeted, and she frowned when Eren ignored her in favor of glaring at Kaz.

“How many people have you told about me?” Eren asked angrily, already making plans in his head for his escape.

“Just Kat,” Kaz assured him. “I swear. And we can trust her.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Kat confirmed, nodding briskly as her eyes took on that look of coal burning in a forge, a sight Eren was familiar with, though he was unused to seeing it in people’s eyes.

“She’ll be able to help,” Kaz added when Eren sighed. “Kat always knows what to do. She was even in the military for a little while, so she knows more than me about all this.”

That peaked Eren’s interest. “Why aren’t you there now?” he asked Katlego.

“I was in my last year of training when our father died.” She answered with a certain somberness that both showed how hurt she was and at the same time showed no weakness. “Times are hard here; someone needed to pick up the ax.”

Eren mulled over the words and decided that they rang true. “What branch were you going into?” he asked, partly for curiosity’s sake and partly as a test.

“The Scouting Legion,” Kat answered immediately, chin raising in pride as if challenging Eren to question her sanity as he was positive many had before.

But instead Eren smiled, not nearly as bright or wide as Kaz or Kat could, but a smile all the same. “Alright,” he said. He knew now that he could trust this girl. The fire in her eyes he now recognized for the one he felt in his own veins, and he knew she was as content trapped within the walls as he was. “You can help.”

Kaz and Kat smiled their matching smiles and the three of them headed into the cave, where Eren began the story once more from the beginning.

 

* * *

 

Katlego tended to respond to parts of Eren’s story in one of two ways: “Hmm.” or “What’s that?” Eren told her about saving Armin from the titan; she responded with a grim “Hmm.” Eren started talking about how he saved Trost by making the metal grid over the hole made with specially treated steel; she asked, “What’s that?” She had a curiosity to her that was rendered insatiable by her small town. Eren could see why she wanted to join the Scouting Legion.

At the end of the story – which took twice as long as the first telling, what with all of Kat’s questions that Eren didn’t hesitate to answer – Kat sat for a while in silence. She was quite obviously deep in thought, so the other two joined her, each trying to figure out the question of “What next?” that hovered in the air after Eren’s story.

At long last Katlego, with her fingers peaked in front of her chin, let out a long, sighing “Hmmm.” The sound drew Eren and Kazimir out of their heads and turned their eyes to the girl. “We need a way to tell people,” she finally said, and Eren and Kaz’s shoulders dropped, having hoped for an answer to their question of “How?” more so than “What?” But at this point they had to take what they could get.

“We can’t exactly go door to door and tell everyone throughout the walls what the government is doing,” Kaz pointed out.

“I know that,” Kat snapped, lightly slapping her brother’s shoulder. “We need to figure out another way.”

They sat in silence again. Every minute or so Kaz would open his mouth as if to speak, reconsider his words, shut his jaw, and frown. Eren furrowed his thick brow and set about sharpening his hook with a stone and wiping it to a shine again as he thought. He still didn’t think he was much of a planner. He preferred the clean lines and measurements of a technical drawing to the theories and unanswerable “what ifs” of human motivation. Even titans seemed more predictable than humans, he thought bitterly. He didn’t ever want to think of the monsters as better than his own kind, but at least titans’ mysteries had predictable outcomes. It wasn’t as necessary they knew _why_ they ate humans if they figured out a way to stop it.

But now, they didn’t know what they were stopping. They didn’t know who was in charge of all this – though it seemed likely it was the king, and all the kings and queens before him – and because of that they didn’t know how to go about whatever they decided they needed to go about doing.

It seemed, Eren thought, a good choice to present the people with the evidence first, as that was how he came about his own conclusions.

How, though? Eren shared this question with Kaz and Kat and they sat and thought of it some more. The two siblings eventually had to leave to go back to town for the night, but they all thought of it then and into the next day when they came back.

Kaz was the one who eventually had a reasonable idea. “What about a newssheet?” he asked suddenly as they sat in Eren’s cave that afternoon. “Like, those papers that they tack up in the town square for people to see?”

“How would we do that, though?” Kat asked, exhausted already from thinking so long. “We can’t just leave town to travel through the walls and tack up newssheets in every town. And Eren can’t do it without getting his head chopped off. There’s no way to get them there.”

Kaz sighed. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“It’s a good idea, though,” Eren said. “If we could figure out how to get it to work.”

“Any idea is good if you can figure out how to get it to work,” Kat pointed out with a smirk.

“Shut up,” Eren said affectionately, smiling back.

“But we could try to figure out how to work that idea instead of coming up with other ones,” Kaz added, getting back on topic.

They were silent for a little while longer as they all thought about how to make this idea work.

“Well if we could make that machine my mentor’s friend came up with, it’d be a lot easier to make copies of the newssheets, and we wouldn’t have to handwrite them,” Eren piped up.

“That still doesn’t solve the issue of actually getting them posted in different towns,” Kaz sighed.

“Yeah, but it helps another part of the plan, so I’m going to work on that. You two come up with the other part.” Eren crawled over to get some paper and a stick of charcoal to start drafting designs for the machine, but as he leaned over his bag, Katlego spoke up.

“What’s that?”

Eren followed Kat’s pointing finger to the key he wore around his neck on a long leather string. It usually rested underneath his shirt, but it had fallen out when he leaned over. He sat back on his haunches and wrapped his hand around the piece of metal he hadn’t given much thought to for years. “It’s…” he began, and then stopped. Why did he wear it, again? He hadn’t thought about it in so long. Eren furrowed his brow and looked at the key. “My dad gave it to me.”

That was right. It was just before he had left for good. He’d given it to Eren and said it was to the basement, and to protect it with his life… But what was down there? He’d seen it, once, when he was little. His dad had shown him, and told him never to speak of it again. His tone had been so serious that he’d refused to even think of it, because whatever it was, it was dangerous. It was deadly. So he’d locked it up in the back of his mind and hidden the key in plain sight. What was in the basement, though?

“I don’t know what it kept hidden,” Eren finally admitted, fully realizing Kaz and Kat were staring at him as he hadn’t spoken for several minutes now. “Something important. I can’t remember.”

“Hmm.” Kat but her arms on her knees and started thinking, as if she could somehow remember for him.

“Well, whatever it is, it’s lost now, right?” Kaz asked. “You said you grew up in Maria.”

“Yeah, I did…” Eren still knew that he had to remember what had been in that basement. Somehow, it was something that would be vital to whatever it was they were trying to do here.

“Let’s get back to the plan then,” Kaz suggested, trying to break Eren from his distraction. They needed to focus on this. They didn’t necessarily have much time. Winter would eventually get here, and Eren would be hard pressed to live out in a cave that whole time.

The three of them sat back in a circle and resumed thinking; even Eren, who forgot he was going to start drafting designs for the machine.

 

* * *

 

The crickets’ chirping never seemed louder. Eren had been trying to fall asleep for what seemed like hours, but it wasn’t quiet enough.

At least, that’s what Eren wanted to blame it on. He’d fallen asleep to the crickets for the past few months; he was used to it.

The one thing he would never get used to was the phantom limb pain that shot like lightning through the spaces where his arm and leg used to be. He was trying to ignore it, to deny its existence, but it was impossible. He could deal with the unique ache that came from wearing his prosthetics too long, or the burn when he outgrew a certain fitting and the prosthetic started chafing through the fabric he kept wrapped around his stubs. But there was nothing that made this better other than ignoring it. It felt like his limbs were being ripped off again, but he had to try to ignore it.

He focused on the crickets and their orchestra, making it crescendo in his mind to try to overpower the zings of pain in his body.

It didn’t help much.

He found himself missing Armin and Mikasa. Whenever he was in pain he missed them. He would think back on their days in the refugee camp after Maria fell, where they had to share a single cot but they didn’t really mind. At least one of them would wake to a nightmare every night, anyway, and the others would be there to comfort them and help them calm down.

Eren missed that. He hadn’t stopped missing it even after three years of being cities away from them.

But thinking of them reminded him that they should have a period of leave coming up soon. He wondered if they would have caught on to where he had told them he would be – the mountains of the southeast, by Wall Rose – but he was pretty certain Armin was smart enough to catch onto that if he’d caught on to the thing about putting the poppies in the Military Police escort’s food. It was a large area, though, and Eren didn’t know how to point them in the right direction now that he was here.

He spent the rest of the night awake, trying to think of a plan. He wondered if that was all the rest of his life would be, planning scheme after scheme. It wasn’t what he had intended. He wasn’t supposed to be the brains of any operation – that was Armin’s forte. He had just wanted to be a soldier. And once that wouldn’t work out, he wanted to be an engineer. He didn’t want to be a leader. He didn’t think he could.

But still, by the time the sun was barely glinting through the canopy of leaves the next morning, Eren had come up with an idea.

* * *

 

“I need you to look out for some people passing through town,” Eren told Kaz and Kat when they got there the next day.

“What do you mean?” Kat asked, situating herself on the cave floor.

“My sister, Mikasa, and my friend, Armin,” Eren explained. “They’re soldiers, and they’ll be looking for me on their upcoming leave. They know I’m in the southeast, near Rose, but not any more detailed than that.”

“How do you know they’ll even come here then?” Kaz asked, looking like he thought Eren might be a little bit crazy from all this thinking they’ve been doing lately.

“I don’t,” Eren admitted. “But I think they will. All the villages in this area are connected by one main road, right? So if they’re looking in this area, they’re bound to pass through.” It was a bit of a stretch, but Eren had to hope.

Kaz and Kat thought for a bit. “That actually does make a bit of sense,” Kaz eventually decided.

“Good,” Eren sighed, glad he didn’t seem as desperate as he felt. “And you’re pretty isolated here, that’s one of the reasons I chose to stay here, but that probably means they’ll need to stay the night somewhere in town, so if you just check the inn every night, or-“

“Yeah, we almost never get visitors,” Kat interrupted. “The inn is only open when there are visitors in town – the rest of the time the owners chop firewood – and normally the only visitors are people taking cargo to or from another village. So we’ll definitely know if a couple of soldiers come to town.”

“Ok, good,” Eren said. He was so glad this might actually work. “Their names are Armin and Mikasa.” He’d already said that but he wanted to make sure they knew. “Mikasa always has a red scarf on. If you go up to them and ask them if they’re Armin and Mikasa, they’ll probably realize that you’re with me.”

“Alright,” Kaz said, committing these instructions to memory. “When are they gonna be here?”

Eren paused a second. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “They should have leave coming up, but I’m only guessing that based on what I remember of military policy. And then it’ll take them a while to actually find this place.”

“Well, if there are any soldiers in town, we’ll let you know,” Kat promised. “Until then, we’ve got other things to think about.”

* * *

 

Mikasa and Armin came to town three weeks and two days later. Eren knew this because he had started marking off the days on a piece of paper a few weeks prior. He regretted not doing it from the start, because he didn’t actually know what the date was, and Kaz and Kat didn’t really pay attention to the specific date much either because they had no need to, so whenever he asked they didn’t know for sure. It was sometime in early autumn.

The day had been as usual for Eren, miles away in the forest with no clue that his family was so close by. In fact, even when Kaz and Kat came for their usual meeting around lunchtime – they weren’t able to spend quite as much time with him now, as they were needed to build the supply of firewood to be sent out before winter – everything was normal.

It wasn’t until after dark when Eren spotted torches coming through the darkness from where he was resting outside the cave that he knew there was anything off. He first thought that he’d been found, and so he hid in his cave and held his breath and hoped to god this wasn’t how it would all end for him.

But then there were whispers that seemed loud on the backdrop of forest noises Eren had grown accustomed to. “Eren?” Kaz’s voice called. “It’s us!”

Eren crawled out of his cave and waited until Kaz and Kat got nearer. “What happened?” he demanded, reattaching his arm prosthetic as he’d been cleaning it before he noticed people coming.

“Nothing bad,” Kaz assured him, picking his way over the forest branches without needing to look at them until he was in the little clearing by the cave where Eren was.

“Two soldiers are in town,” Kat told Eren. “We think they might be your friends.”

Eren’s face lit up. “Really?” he asked. “What do they look like?”

“One’s a girl with black hair and a scarf-“ Kaz began.

“That’s Mikasa!” Eren exclaimed, putting a hand over his mouth because he was about to cry he was so happy.

“The other is a boy with longish blond hair,” Kat added, even though she wasn’t sure the description was necessary. Eren seemed to be sure these were his friends.

“That’s Armin.” Eren fell to his knees. He wasn’t sure he’d ever see them again, and now… “You need to bring them here.” He stared up at Kaz and Kat, eyes fierce. “I need to see them.”

“Ok,” Kat said, nodding. “We’ll get them here.”

“We need to get back now, though,” Kaz said. “Someone will notice we’re gone…” With how small their town was, they might have already been discovered missing. They knew they’d needed to come, though. They knew Eren would want to know right away, and they hadn’t wanted to approach the soldiers without checking with Eren first. He’d described Armin and Mikasa to them the one time, but they wanted to be sure.

“Yeah,” Eren said, realizing how dangerous it could be if people went out looking for the two of them. “Yeah, you should get going. Just… Get them here as soon as you can, ok?”

“Will do,” Kat assured him. “See ya soon.”

Eren didn’t even try to sleep after Kaz and Kat left. He knew he wouldn’t be able to. He cried for a while, and he was glad he was alone to do it. Why wouldn’t he cry, though? There had been a good chance he’d never see them again, but that chance didn’t matter now. He would get to see them, and soon. He would see his family again.

 

* * *

 

The next day happened to be the Sabbath, so after morning services Kaz and Kat had a day off, which was convenient. They decided that Kaz should approach Armin and Mikasa first, because both of them might be a little threatening or suspicious. She caught them while they were in the town stables, tending to their horses.

“Um, hi,” she said, poking her head in before entering fully.

Armin and Mikasa stopped what they were doing and turned to face her. “Hi,” Armin said tentatively.

“This might sound… odd, but are you two…” Kaz would probably have been better at this. Kat was normally a very straightforward person, but this was just awkward. Kaz was better with people than she was. She powered through, though. “Are you Armin and Mikasa?”

Mikasa dropped the bucket of water she was holding and stared at Kat. Armin was equally frozen for a minute. Mikasa suddenly surged forward, tears in her eyes. “Do you know-“

Armin put a hand over her mouth to muffle her last word, even though Kat knew what it would be. After ensuring Mikasa wouldn’t say Eren’s name, Armin let go of her and looked around to make sure they were alone. He motioned them all back into the corner of a stall for even more privacy. “Do you know Eren?” he asked quietly, and Kat could tell that for as logical and thoughtful as he was being, he wanted to break down crying as well.

Kat just nodded her assent, and stayed silent a few minutes while the two embraced each other and cried with relief. “He wants to see you,” she finally said. “My brother and I can take you to him.”

“Yes,” Mikasa said. “Please.”

“Can we go now?” Armin asked.

Kat smiled. “I think he’d like to see you as soon as possible. But we should be careful.” It would be best if they weren’t caught walking around together, just in case. Kat trusted everyone in town, but it wouldn’t be good to arouse unnecessary suspicion and have to explain to everyone just what was going on. Thankfully, Kaz and Kat planned this out earlier. “After I leave, you finish up here and then go back in the direction of the inn. Keep going past it until you get to the storehouse.” The storehouse, where all the chopped wood was kept, was a central hub in the town, and so for Kaz and Kat it was easiest to give directions based on it. Thankfully, because it was the Sabbath there wouldn’t be anyone there. “Go north from the storehouse into the woods there. My brother and I will be waiting.”

“Ok,” Armin said, both he and Mikasa nodding. “We’ll be there soon.”

Kat nodded and left the stable to go to the meeting point another way.

 

* * *

 

Less than an hour later, the four of them were nearly to the cave. Kaz and Kat had to keep slowing down to accommodate Armin and Mikasa, who weren’t as used to picking their way through the forest without trails or maneuver gear.

“It’s just up through here,” Kaz said, leading them under a low-hanging branch. “Eren!” he called, not too loudly even though he knew nobody else would be out here but them.

“Kaz?” Eren’s voice answered from just ahead. “Did you-“

“Eren!” Mikasa exclaimed, bounding forward towards the voice, Armin at her heels.

“Mikasa!” Eren called back, picking himself up and rushing towards his friends until he was in their arms. “Armin!”

Kaz and Kat let the three of them have their moment, standing off to the side and averting their eyes from the group hug and crying that was taking place.

After the initial greetings and expressions of relief and happiness, they eventually sat down for Eren to share his story once more. It was slightly different because Armin and Mikasa already knew parts of it, but the ending was the most important, anyway, and that was the same.

“They killed him just for having an idea?” Mikasa asked after Eren explained about Hagen’s idea. “That makes no sense!”

“It does,” Armin said, having been sitting with an incredibly focused expression on his face the entire time. “It makes complete sense.” Everyone looked at him, so he went on. “Eren’s right. When was the last time anything really changed? That wouldn’t just happen naturally.”

“How do you know?” Mikasa asked. “How do you know it wouldn’t happen naturally?”

“Because,” Armin explained. “They banned books from before the walls.” He looked around at the others’ confused expressions at his logical leap. “If they hadn’t banned the books, I could understand it being a coincidence, or being natural. But they have no good reason for banning the books, so why would they do it? If they have nothing to fear, they should have nothing to hide.”

 

* * *

 

As the sun was going down, the five of them were sitting around a small fire and brainstorming ideas again. Eren had hoped that having Armin here would help them come up with something, but so far they had nothing useful.

Eren was turning over the key on his necklace in his hand as a subconscious habit he’d developed since he was reminded he was wearing it when Kat’s eyes drifted toward the movement.

“Did you ever remember what that went to?” she asked, needing a break from the constant strategizing.

Caught by surprise, Eren looked from Katlego down to the key and back up. “No, I-“ He looked around at the others, and when his eyes landed on Armin he remembered. Images flashed through his mind as he gasped and his eyes widened.

“Eren?” Mikasa asked, worried.

“I…” Eren breathed, still processing his memories. “I know what it is,” he said, a manic smile growing on his face as he looked into the fire. It’s… it’s perfect, we need to-“

“What is it?” Kat asked, knowing Eren would ramble if not put on track now.

Eren looked up, fire burning hot in his eyes. “Books,” he explained. “Hundreds of books. From before the walls.”


End file.
